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by srean 131 days ago
Yes. Very few non-Dravidian languages spoken in India, have that specific sound.

The only exception I can think of is Marathi. The 'el' in 'sakal' is roughly the same.

2 comments

Technically it’s a retroflex approximant [1] and is found in many places (often not as a separate character or phoneme).

But I think we’ve hijacked a cultural thread with enough phonetics for now!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_retroflex_approximant

Wow, I didn't know this. Thanks for sharing!
Marathi also has the ch vs ts thing. Similar issues turns up in transliterating Cyrillic -- Chebyshev vs Tschebyshev.