Tatta: The Gurmukhi Letter

Tatta is the twenty-first letter of the Gurmukhi painti and opens the dental series, the fourth of the five and the second row the alphabet devotes to a t-like sound. The difference between this row and the retroflex row five letters earlier is where the tongue makes contact. A retroflex consonant is made with the tip curled back against the roof of the mouth; a dental one is made with the tip against the upper teeth, further forward, and the release is lighter.

In Punjabi these are two distinct consonants and not two ways of saying one, so a word written with Tatta is a different word from the same shape written with Ṭainka. English complicates the comparison rather than helping it, because the English t is made at the ridge behind the teeth, between the two Punjabi positions and identical to neither. Punjabi speakers hear it as nearer the retroflex, which is why English words borrowed into Punjabi are commonly written with the retroflex row rather than this one, and why a Punjabi accent in English is often described as sounding retroflex. Tatta itself is a high frequency letter and opens a large family of Punjabi words. Its written form is a stem from the headline with a hook to its right, and it is among the letters whose shape has changed least between manuscript and printed Gurmukhi.