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How does Hindi distinguish four different kinds of stop consonants?

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Diagram of a human head in profile showing the location of vocal organs and possible places of articulation for speech sounds, with labels for lips, teeth, tongue, palate, uvula, pharynx, and vocal cords, and numbered regions corresponding to types of articulation such as bilabial, alveolar, and velar.
pronunciation Diagram depicting the location of human vocal organs and possible places of articulation used for speech.

Hindi distinguishes four different kinds of stop consonants by utilizing contrasts between voicing (whether the vocal cords vibrate) and aspiration (the forceful expulsion of air during release).12

These four categories are typically represented in the following phonetic combinations:

  • Voiceless unaspirated: Produced without vocal cord vibration and without a forceful burst of air (e.g., k).23
  • Voiceless aspirated: Produced without vocal cord vibration but with a forceful expulsion of air upon release (e.g., kh).123
  • Voiced unaspirated: Produced with vocal cord vibration and without a forceful burst of air (e.g., g).23
  • Voiced aspirated: Produced with vocal cord vibration and an accompanying forceful expulsion of air (e.g., gh).123

In addition to these, Hindi and other languages of India may utilize breathy voice (or murmur), where the vocal cords vibrate while held slightly apart, allowing air to escape between them. These distinctions allow Hindi to maintain a complex inventory of stop sounds across various places of articulation, such as velar, dental, and retroflex.23