Retroflex ejective fricative

A retroflex ejective fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʂʼ⟩.

Features of a retroflex ejective fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is retroflex, which prototypically means it is articulated subapical (with the tip of the tongue curled up), but more generally, it means that it is postalveolar without being palatalized. That is, besides the prototypical subapical articulation, the tongue can be apical (pointed) or, in some fricatives, laminal (flat).
• Its phonation is un-voiced, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is ejective (glottalic egressive), which means the air is forced out by pumping the glottis upward.

• Index of phonetics articles

• List of languages with [ʂʼ] on PHOIBLE

• Fricative consonants
• Alveolar consonants
• Lateral consonants
• Ejectives
• Oral consonants
• Central consonants

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• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles lacking sources from December 2009
• All articles lacking sources
• Pages with plain IPA
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• Articles needing examples from December 2018