A subapical consonant is a consonant made by contact with the underside of the tip of the tongue. The only common subapical articulations are in the postalveolar to

palatal The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...

region, which are called "

retroflex A retroflex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal (Help:IPA/English, /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated betw ...

". Most so-called retroflex consonants are more properly called

apical Apical means "pertaining to an apex". It may refer to: *Apical ancestor, refers to the last common ancestor of an entire group, such as a species (biology) or a clan (anthropology) *Apical (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features loc ...

. True subapical retroflexes are found in the

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...

Southern India South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territ ...

. Occasionally, the term "sublaminal" is used for "subapical", which might be better used for sounds pronounced between the underside of the tongue and the floor of the mouth, such as

sucking-teeth Gestures are a form of nonverbal communication in which visible bodily actions are used to communicate important messages, either in place of speech or together and in parallel with spoken words. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, o ...

and the

slapped click The alveolar or postalveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found only in Africa and in the Damin ritual jargon of Australia. The tongue is more or less concave (depending on the language), and is pulled down rather than back as in ...

s of Sandawe.

References

* Peter Ladefoged; Ian Maddieson. ''The Sounds of the World's Languages.'' Oxford: Blackwell 1996. . * Sanford B. Steever (ed.). ''The Dravidian Languages.'' Routledge. New edition 2006. . Retroflex consonants {{phonetics-stub