Alveolar flap

The alveolar tap/flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is {{IPA|ɾ}}, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is 4.

Related Topics:
Consonant - Spoken - Language - International Phonetic Alphabet - X-SAMPA

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The difference between a tap and a flap is that in a tap the tongue flips up to strike its point of contact, like a very light plosive, whereas with a flap the tongue is thrown out and down, striking the point of contact in passing. For linguists that make a distinction between the two, the tap is transcribed as a "fish-hook ar", {{IPA|}}, while the flap is transcribed as a small capital dee, {{IPA|}} (which however is not recognized by the IPA). However, no language contrasts a tap and a flap at the same point of articulation, so the terms are often used loosely.

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