Retroflex stop
In phonetics and phonology, a retroflex stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with the tongue curled back and in contact with area behind the alveolar ridge or with the hard palate, held tightly enough to block the passage of air. The point of contact is commonly either the tongue tip or tongue blade.
Sometimes, however, the tongue is curled far enough back that the underside actually contacts the palate. That is known as a subapical retroflex stop and particularly occurs in the Dravidian languages of southern India. A stop consonant that is made with the body of the tongue in contact with the hard palate is called a palatal stop.
Retroflex stops are less common than velar stops or alveolar stops and do not occur in English. They sound somewhat like the English alveolar stops and, but they have a more hollow quality. Retroflex stops are particularly common in the South Asian languages, such as Hindi and Tamil. Although they are fairly rare in European languages, they occur in Swedish and Norwegian.
The most common sounds are the stops and. More generally, several kinds are distinguished:
