tʷʼ vs d

Voiceless Alveolar Stop vs Voiced Alveolar Stop

How these sounds differ

tʷʼ

Voiceless Alveolar Stop

Voicing: voiceless
Place: alveolar
Manner: stop
Class: consonant
In languages: 2 / 500

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Voiced Alveolar Stop

Voicing: voiced
Place: alveolar
Manner: stop
Class: consonant
In languages: 217 / 500

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Cross-linguistic distribution

Languages with tʷʼ

Languages with both

217

Languages with d

2 languages in our database contrast both sounds as distinct phonemes. Languages that have one but not the other tend to merge them into a single phoneme — meaning speakers of those languages often struggle to hear the distinction when learning a language that contrasts them.

Has d, not tʷʼ (20)

Salish Salishan Gadsup Nuclear Trans New Guinea Telefol Nuclear Trans New Guinea Adzera Austronesian Iai Austronesian Chamorro Austronesian Sa'ban Austronesian Malagasy Austronesian Toba-Batak Austronesian Cham Austronesian Yay Tai-Kadai Garo Sino-Tibetan Lahu Sino-Tibetan Dafla Sino-Tibetan Yao Hmong-Mien Kota Dravidian Burushaski Language isolate Lak Nakh-Daghestanian Ket Yeniseian Kwakiutl Wakashan