A voiceless retroflex sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is which is a Latin letter s combined with a retroflex hook. Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA letter is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook to the bottom of (the letter used for the corresponding alveolar consonant). A distinction can be made between laminal, apical, and sub-apical articulations. Only one language, Toda, appears to have more than one voiceless retroflex sibilant, and it distinguishes subapical palatal from apical postalveolar retroflex sibilants; that is, both the tongue articulation and the place of contact on the roof of the mouth are different.
Features
thumb|upright=0.6|class=skin-invert-image|[[Sagittal section of a voiceless retroflex fricative]]
Features of a voiceless retroflex fricative:
Occurrence
In the following transcriptions, diacritics may be used to distinguish between apical and laminal .
The commonality of cross-linguistically is 6% in a phonological analysis of 2155 languages.
{| class="wikitable" style="clear: both;"
! colspan="2" | Language !! Word !! IPA!! Meaning !! Notes
|-
| colspan="2" | Abkhaz || / || || 'day' || See Abkhaz phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Adyghe || / / || || 'girl' || Laminal.
|-
| Chinese || Mandarin || / || || 'stone' || Apical. See Mandarin phonology
|-
| Emilian-Romagnol || Romagnol || || || 'yes' || Apical; may be or instead.
|-
| English || General American || worship || || 'worship' || Allophone of after .
|-
| colspan="2"| Faroese || || || 'eighty' ||
|-
| Hindustani || Hindi || / || || 'trouble' || See Hindi phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Hmong || / || || 'to write' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Kannada || / || || 'difficult' || Only in loanwords. See Kannada phonology.
|-
| Khanty || Most northern dialects || / || || 'knee' || Corresponds to a voiceless retroflex affricate in the southern and eastern dialects.
|-
| colspan="2" | Kyrgyz || / || || 'Osh' || Allophone of . See Kyrgyz phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Lower Sorbian || || || 'glass' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Malayalam || / || || 'difficult' || Only occurs in loanwords. See Malayalam phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Mapudungun || || || 'fog' || Possible allophone of in post-nuclear position.
|-
| colspan="2" | Marathi || / || || 'sage' || See Marathi phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Nepali || / || || 'Shashthi (day)' || Allophone of in neighbourhood of retroflex consonants. See Nepali phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Norwegian || || || 'healthy' || Allophone of the sequence in many dialects, including Urban East Norwegian. See Norwegian phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Oʼodham || || || 'Tucson' || Apical.
|-
| Pashto || Southern dialect || / || || 'to show' ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | Polish || Standard || || || 'rustle' || After voiceless consonants it is also represented by . When written so, it can be instead pronounced as the voiceless raised alveolar non-sonorant trill by few speakers. Transcribed by most Polish scholars. See Polish phonology
|-
| Southeastern Cuyavian dialects || rowspan="2" | || rowspan="2" | || rowspan="2" | 'they hid' || rowspan="2" | Some speakers. It's a result of hypercorrecting the more popular merger of and into (see szadzenie).
|-
| Suwałki dialect
|-
| rowspan="2" | Romanian || Moldavian dialects || rowspan="2" | || rowspan="2" | || rowspan="2" | 'barn' || rowspan="2" | Apical. See Romanian phonology
|-
| Transylvanian dialects
|-
| colspan="2" | Russian ||
|-
| North Uist and Benbecula || || ||'coyote'
|
|-
| Zapotec || Tilquiapan || || — || — || Allophone of before and .
|}
Voiceless retroflex non-sibilant fricative
Features
Features of a voiceless retroflex non-sibilant fricative:
Occurrence
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2" | Language !! Word !! IPA !! Meaning !! Notes
|-
| Ormuri || Kaniguram dialect || || || || Usually corresponds to in the Logar dialect.
|}
Voiceless retroflex approximant
Some scholars also posit the voiceless retroflex approximant distinct from the fricative. The approximant may be represented in the IPA as .
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2" | Language !! Word !! IPA !! Meaning !! Notes
|-
| colspan="2" | Angami || || || || Contrasts with
|-
| colspan="2" | Chokri || colspan="2" align=center | || || In free variation with ; contrasts with
|-
| colspan="2" | Faroese || || || 'only' || Devoiced approximant allophone of . See Faroese phonology
|}
See also
- Index of phonetics articles
- Voiced retroflex fricative