Tamil phonology

Tamil phonology is characterised by the presence of retroflex consonants and multiple rhotic consonants. It does not distinguish phonologically between voiced and unvoiced consonants; phonetically, voice is assigned depending on a consonant's position in a word. Tamil phonology permits few consonant clusters, which can never be word initial. Native grammarians classify Tamil phonemes into vowels, consonants, and a "secondary character", the āytam.

Vowels

Monophthongs

	Front		Central		Back
	long	short	long	short	long	short
Close	iː ஈ	i இ			uː ஊ	u உ
Mid	eː ஏ	e எ			oː ஓ	o ஒ
Open			aː ஆ	a அ

Tamil has two diphthongs /aɪ/ ஐ and /aʊ/ ஔ, the latter of which is restricted to a few lexical items.

Consonants

A chart of the Tamil consonant phonemes in the International Phonetic Alphabet follows:

Tamil consonants

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Alveolo-palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m ம்	n̪ ந்	n ன்	ɳ ண்	ɲ ஞ்	(ŋ) ங்
Stop	p ப்	t̪ த்		ʈ ட்		k க்
Affricate					t͡ɕ ச்
Fricative	f2	s1 ஸ் (z)2		ʂ2 ஷ்	ɕ1 ஶ்	x3	ɦ3 ஹ்
Tap				ɽ ற்
Trill			r ர்
Approximant	ʋ வ்			ɻ ழ்	j ய்
Lateral approximant			l ல்	ɭ ள்

1. [s] and [ɕ] are allophones of /t͡ɕ/ in some dialects.
2. /f/ and /ʂ/ are found only in loanwords and frequently replaced by native sounds.
3. [ɦ] and [x] are allophones of /k/ in some dialects.

The voiceless consonants have multiple allophones, depending on position.

Tamil stop allophones

Place	Initial	Geminate	Intervocalic	Post-nasal
Velar	k	kː	x~∅	ɡ
Palatal	tɕ~s	tːɕ	s	dʑ
Retroflex	—	ʈː	ɽ	ɖ
Alveolar	—	t̪ː	r	r
Dental	t̪		ð	d̪
Labial	p	pː	β~w	b

External links

• Tamil phonology