The Tamil letter ழ் (transliterated as zh sometimes, but in the ethnonym Tamil, by l) is a retroflex approximant /ɻ/. Tamil phonology is quite different from Sanskrit (or Hindi) phonology. There are no aspirated stops, and each stop has roughly two allophones, one voiceless and the other voiced, depending on context. That having been said, Tamil does distinguish between dental-alveolar and retroflex stops த் /t̪/ (th in transliteration) and ட் /ʈ/ (t in transliteration). (It is the former letter/phoneme in the word Tamil.)

[Corrected mistake.]

Last edited by zmjezhd; 07/23/09 01:37 PM.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.