Voiceless alveolar implosive

A voiceless alveolar implosive is a rare consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ɗ̥ or tʼ↓. A dedicated IPA letter, ƭ, was withdrawn in 1993.

Voiceless alveolar implosive
ɗ̥
ƭ
tʼ↓

Features

Features of the voiceless alveolar implosive:

  • Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
  • It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
  • 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 implosive (glottalic ingressive), which means it is produced by pulling air in by pumping the glottis downward. As it is voiceless, the glottis is completely closed, and there is no pulmonic airstream at all.

Occurrence

A rare and evidently unstable sound, /ɗ̥/ is found in Serer of Senegal, the Owere dialect of Igbo in Nigeria, and in some dialects of the Poqomchi’ and Quiche languages of Guatemala. Owere Igbo has a seven-way contrast among alveolar stops, /tʰ t ɗ̥ dʱ d ɗ n/.

See also

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