A voiced dental fricative is a consonant sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to most English-speakers as the sound in father.
The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for this sound is eth , which was taken from the Old English and Icelandic alphabets. In Old English, the letter was used interchangeably with thorn for either this sound or its unvoiced counterpart; in Icelandic, eth is solely used for this sound, and thorn its unvoiced counterpart. Such fricatives are often called "interdental" because they are often produced with the tongue between the upper and lower teeth (as in Received Pronunciation), and not just against the back of the upper teeth, as they are with other dental consonants.
The letter is sometimes used to represent a voiced dental approximant, a similar sound, which no language is known to contrast with a dental non-sibilant fricative. However, the approximant can be explicitly indicated with the lowering diacritic: . Rarely, this sound has also been transcribed as a alveolar approximant . It has been proposed that either a turned or reversed , among others, be used as a dedicated symbol for the dental approximant; however, despite occasional usage, none have gained general acceptance. Like the fricative, the approximant may also be articulated interdentally in some languages., regarding speakers of Kagayanen and Kalinga, both languages of the Philippines.
Dental fricatives are rare as phonemes. Almost all languages of Europe and Asia lack the sound. Native speakers of languages without the sound often have difficulty enunciating or distinguishing it, and they replace it with a voiced alveolar sibilant , a voiced dental stop or voiced alveolar stop , or a voiced labiodental fricative ; known respectively as th-alveolarization, th-stopping, and th-fronting. As for Europe, there seems to be a great arc where the sound (and/or its unvoiced variant) is present. Most of Mainland Europe lacks the sound. However, some "periphery" languages such as Greek have the sound in their consonant inventories, as phonemes or allophones.
Within Turkic languages, Bashkir and Turkmen have both voiced and voiceless dental non-sibilant fricatives among their consonants. Among Semitic languages, they are used in Modern Standard Arabic, albeit not by all speakers of modern Arabic dialects, and in some dialects of Hebrew and Assyrian.
Features
Features of a voiced dental non-sibilant fricative:
It does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.
Occurrence
Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Albanian 'idol' Aleut 'house' Arabic Modern Standard / đeheb 'gold' See Arabic phonologyGulfNajdi TunisianSee Tunisian Arabic phonology Arpitan and Savoyard Genèva 'Geneva' Generally represents the "j" and "ge/gi" phonemes in standard spelling. Bressan vachiére 'woman cow herder' Bressan dialect, like the Geneva and many Savoy ones, express "j" and "ge/gi" (in standard Arpitan spelling) as voiced dental fricatives. In addition, however, its dialects often express the intervocalic "r" as such as well. Aromanian 'butter whey' Corresponds to in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology Asturian Some dialects 'to do' Alternative realization of etymological . Can also be realized as . Bashkir / / قاذ(historically) 'goose' Berta 'to sweep' Burmese 'inlander' Commonly realized as an affricate .Bengaliˈslaughter'Only occurs in loanwords. See Bengali phonologyBretonGwenedeg, Enez Sun'of god'Corresponds with in other dialects.Cornish[ɔmðiskˈwɛːðɛz]'to feature'See Cornish phonology and Standard Written FormCree Woods Cree (th-dialect)'I'Reflex of Proto-Algonguian *. Shares features of a sonorant. Dahalo Weak fricative or approximant. It is a common intervocalic allophone of , and may be simply a plosive instead. Elfdalian 'wait' EmilianBologneseżänt'people'EnglishReceived Pronunciation this 'this'Western American English Interdental.Extremaduran'to do'Realization of etymological . Can also be realized as Fijian 'nine' Galician Some dialects 'to do' Alternative realization of etymological . Can also be realized as . German Austrian 'unfortunately' Intervocalic allophone of in casual speech. See Standard German phonology Greek / 'laurel' See Modern Greek phonology Gwich'in 'you want' Hän 'hide' Harsusi 'bee' Hebrew Iraqi 'my lord' Commonly pronounced . See Modern Hebrew phonology Temani / ğaḏol 'large, great' See Yemenite Hebrew Icelandic það / thath 'it' Judeo-Spanish Many dialects / 'creator' Intervocalic allophone of in many dialects.Kabyle 'to be exhausted' Kurdish ئازان [a.ðan] An approximant; postvocalic allophone of . See Kurdish phonology Malay Standard azan 'azan' Only in Arabic loanwords; usually replaced with . See Malay phonology Malto मेद़ / mēð 'body' See Malto phonology Mari Eastern dialect 'lung' Norman Jèrriais 'mother' Predominantly found in western Jèrriais dialects; otherwise realised as , and sometimes as or . Northern Sámi 'science' Persian Early New Persian, Early Judeo-Persian / guḏaštan 'to pass' Called ḏāl-i mu'ajjam. A postvocalic pronunciation of native , either considered phonemic or phonetic. See Persian phonology Portuguese European 'nothing' Northern and central dialects. Allophone of , mainly after an oral vowel. See Portuguese phonology Sardinian 'nest' Allophone of lenis , may also be realized closer to an approximant. See Sardinian phonology Scottish Gaelic Lewis 'Mary' Slightly palatalized. Common Hebridean realisation of /ɾʲ/, standard or even phonemic in Lewis and also common in Harris; otherwise realized as [] in Harris, Uist and Barra, in Skye, as in southern Barra, or as in Tiree. Shughni 'smoke, fumes' See Shughni phonology Sioux Lakota 'five' Sometimes with Swahili 'sin' Mostly occurs in Arabic loanwords originally containing this sound. Swedish Central Standard 'a board (object)' Allophone of lenis in casual speech, may be realized closer to an approximant. See Swedish phonology Syriac Western Neo-Aramaic 'to take' Tanacross 'liver' Turkmenýyldyz'star'Realization of the phoneme Tutchone Northern 'hide' Southern Venetian 'midday' Welsh 'bard' See Welsh phonology Zapotec Tilquiapan Allophone of
Voiced dental approximant
The following list includes languages with variable pronunciations. Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Assyrian (werda) ] 'flower' Common in the Tyari, Barwari, and Western dialects. Corresponds to in other varieties. Asturian 'father' Allophone of . Fricative or approximant. See Asturian phonology Basque 'horn' Allophone of Catalan 'each' Allophone of . Fricative or approximant. See Catalan phonology Extremaduran 'net' Allophone of . Usually elided in some cases. Fricative or approximant Galician 'side' Allophone of . Fricative or approximant. See Galician phonology Kagayanen 'spirit' Luri Haftlang Bakhtiari around Masjed Soleyman (gade) 'stomach' Allophone of after vowels and also word-finally after glides (, , ). Occitan Gascon 'what I should' Allophone of . See Occitan phonology Spanish Most dialects 'finger' Allophone of , ranges from close fricative to approximant.Phonetic studies such as have found that Spanish voiced stops may surface as spirants with various degrees of constriction. These allophones are not limited to regular fricative articulations, but range from articulations that involve a near complete oral closure to articulations involving a degree of aperture quite close to vocalization See Spanish phonology
The Danish phoneme typically transcribed as is actually an alveolar approximant.
See also Voiceless dental fricative Voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative
Index of phonetics articles
Notes
References
External links