ɳ

ɳ (Latin Small Letter N With Retroflex Hook, U+0273) is a specialized character from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), used to represent a voiced retroflex nasal consonant. Visually, it appears as a standard lowercase 'n' but features a distinct retroflex hook extending from its bottom right, curving backward and slightly upwards—a crucial visual indicator that the sound is produced with the tongue curled back towards the roof of the mouth. This sound is prevalent in many languages, including numerous Indo-Aryan languages like Marathi and some dialects of Hindi, as well as several Dravidian and Indigenous Australian languages. The retroflex hook is a consistent diacritic across various IPA consonants (like `ʈ`, `ɖ`, `ʂ`, `ʐ`, `ɭ`) to denote this specific articulation, enabling phoneticians to precisely transcribe the nuances of human speech.