Many Indo-Aryan languages such as Nepali and Hindi have 4-way contrasts
of voicing. For Hindi, separate sets of examples are given from illustrations
of the IPA and SoWL. Note that the best designation for sounds referred
to as "retroflex" in the examples of Hindi would probably be apical postalveolar.
The diacritic ʱ (superscript voiced glottal fricative) denotes voiced
aspirated sounds. This helps to emphasize that the aspiration phase of
these sounds is generally voiced (i.e. it consists of breathy voice phonation).
However, interruptions of the voicing may occur (see sonagrams). Another
interesting feature of Hindi is aspiration in affricates which otherwise
rarely occurs.
Note: Somewhat confusingly, the category referred to as "retroflex" in IPA
is called "postalveolar" in SoWL , while the category referred to in IPA
as "postalveolar" (affricate) is called "palatoalveolar" in SoWL. In the
tables below, we have followed the IPA designations for both sets of examples.
Examples from IPA Illustrations
bɑl ("hair")
d̪ɑl ("lentil")
ɖɑl ("branch")
dʒɑl ("net")
gɑl ("cheek")
pɑl ("nurture")
t̪ɑl ("beat")
ʈɑl ("postpone")
tʃɑl ("gait")
kɑl ("span of time")
pʰɑl ("knife blade")
t̪ʰɑl ("platter")
ʈʰɑl ("lumber shop")
tʃʰɑl ("tree bark")
kʰɑl ("skin")
bʱɑl ("brow")
d̪ʱɑɾ ("knife edge")
ɖʱɑl ("shield")
dʒʱəl ("glimmer")
gʱɑn ("bundle")
Examples from SoWL
bɑl ("hair")
d̪ɑl ("lentil")
ɖɑl ("branch")
dʒɑl ("net")
gɑl ("cheek")
pɑl ("nurture")
t̪ɑl ("beat")
ʈɑl ("postpone")
tʃɑl ("gait")
kɑl ("span of time")
pʰɑl ("knife blade")
t̪ʰɑl ("platter")
ʈʰɑl ("lumber shop")
tʃʰɑl ("tree bark")
kʰɑl ("skin")
bʱɑl ("brow")
d̪ʱɑɾ ("knife edge")
ɖʱɑl ("shield")
dʒʱəl ("glimmer")
gʱɑn ("bundle")
Audio Source:
Illustrations of the IPA.
Sounds of the World's Languages.
