Re: Mystery Phoneme

I don't know about this one. But It reminds me of some chinese sounds
(please correct me if i am wrong).

while chinese does not have this stop, it has consonants articulated as
you say.

in the pinyin transliteration:
j is a unaspirated voiceless affricate
q is a aspirated voiceless afficate
x is a voiceless fricative

however, in chinese, the middle of the tongue might be a bit more
backward than you discribe. palatal, instead of alveolar.

but none of my chinese books has a specific term for indicating that the
tip of the down is behind the lower teeth. they indicate it with a full
sentence.

It this word would be good to find, indeed. I wonder if it exists or not.

Caleb Hines wrote:
> What would you call the following sound. I made it up, and am thinking
> about using it in Akathanu.
>
> In contrast to a normal /t/ which is made with the tip of the tonge above
> and behind the upper teeth, the mystery sound is produced by bracing the
> tip of the tongue behind the lower teeth and raising the middle of the
> tongue to the same point that the tip would touch in a normal /t/ (or maybe
> slightly further back). The resulting sound is softer than /t/, and sounds
> slightly different in spoken speech. It is still a voiceles stop,
> articulated in roughly the same place as /t/, but with a different part of
> the tongue. Is there such a thing, or is there any reason to believe that a
> human natlang might have this sound as distinct from /t/ (or is it even a
> case of ANADEW?). Has anyone else used it in a conlang?
>
> Lacking better terminology, I'm calling it an "antiretroflex t" (retroflexs
> curl the tongue upward, in this sound, the tongue curls downward). Come to
> think of it, you could also have a whole series of "antiretroflexes",
> including an "antiretroflex" d and n.

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