So in Urdu language there is no word starting with Ṛe "ڑ" IPA /ɽ/ but I think there may be some words in another language that begins with Ṛe "ڑ" or have similar sound.
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2There are probably languages where a retroflex r can be word-initial, but the use of the Urdu alphabet is a quite specific demand, and accidental at the same time, because the language does not depend on its written form. Even Hindustani (the union of Hindi and Urdu) can be written in several scripts.– Sir CornflakesApr 10, 2021 at 20:38
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1Fun result: Searching for the letter alone yields a Muslim Baby name site showing a name starting with that letter: Islamic Muslim Baby Girl Names starting with " ڑ " Ray NAME MEANING URDU Rudmira Brownish, Diminutive Of Samra ڑمیرا– Sir CornflakesApr 10, 2021 at 20:57
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1Retroflexes are very common in Australian languages, and the retroflex r is perhaps the most common of these segments. Here's a paper that discusses retroflex phonotactics and some languages that allow them in different locations (including as initial)– Gaston ÜmlautApr 13, 2021 at 1:01
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2 Answers
In Pashto (Indo-Iranian), the word for ‘blind’ does begin with /ɽ/ and is also written with ‘ڑ’ in some scripts, though most widely accepted scripts use ړ.
- blind: [ɽʉ̃n] (it's also pronounced with [ɻ])
answered Apr 11, 2021 at 5:00
Augmenting @JoyfulSadness's answer, assuming ړ as the corresponding Pashto phoneme for Urdu's ڑ, here are couple of Pashto words: ړومبی (dialectal form of لومړی), and ړوند.
In Sindhi & Shina Abjad, it is written as ڙ. Example: ڙک
Shahmukhi also has ڑ same as in Urdu, similarly but do not have words starting with that phoneme.
In general, most Indo-Iranian languages do not have words that begin with /ɽ/. Just like Urdu, the corresponding phoneme in Hindi (Devanagari ड़) is not used to start any word.
