A voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to most English-speakers as the sound in think.

Though rather rare as a phoneme among the world's languages, it is encountered in some of the most widespread and influential ones. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The IPA symbol is the lowercase Greek letter theta, which is used for this sound in post-classical Greek, and the sound is thus often referred to as "theta".

Dental non-sibilant fricatives (this sound and its voiced counterpart) are often called "interdental" because they are often produced with the tongue between the upper and lower teeth, and not just against the back of the upper or lower teeth, as they are with other dental consonants.

Speakers of languages and dialects without the sound sometimes have difficulty producing or distinguishing it from similar sounds, especially if they have had no chance to acquire it in childhood, and typically replace it with a voiceless alveolar fricative , voiceless dental stop , or a voiceless labiodental fricative ; known respectively as th-alveolarization, th-stopping, and th-fronting.

These sounds are known to have disappeared from a number of languages, e.g. from most of the Germanic languages or dialects, where it is retained only in Scots, English, and Icelandic, but it is alveolar in the last of these., cited in Among non-Germanic Indo-European languages as a whole, the sound was also once much more widespread, but is today preserved in a few languages including the Brythonic languages, Peninsular Spanish, Galician, Venetian, Tuscan, Albanian, some Occitan dialects and Greek. It has likewise disappeared from many modern vernacular varieties of Arabic, like Egyptian Arabic. Standard Arabic, and various dialects like Mesopotamian Arabic still retain the sound and its voiced counterpart . Similarly in Spanish, is present in the Iberian (peninsular) standard pronunciation of , but absent in several dialects of Andalusian, Canarian, and Hispanic America as a whole.

On the other hand, there are a very few languages, including Turkmen and Standard Zhuang, where these sounds have replaced and are even spelled with or its orthographic equivalent.

Features

Features of a voiceless 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 'says' Arabic Modern Standard 'a dress' Represented by . See Arabic phonology.Eastern Libyan 'three' Sanʽani 'it is priced' Iraqi 'eight' Khuzestani 'the second one' Aragonese 'bush' Arapaho 'five' Arpitan and Savoyard marchiê 'market' èthêla 'star' cllâf 'key' Limited to (VD), Bourg-Saint-Pierre (VS), and a few other villages. Assyrian ܒܝܬܐ bèṭa 'house' Mostly used in the Western, Barwari, Tel Keppe, Batnaya and Alqosh dialects; realized as in other varieties. Asturian 'juice' Avestan xšaθra 'kingdom' Bashkir 'friend' Berber 'Berber' (language) This pronunciation is common in northern Morocco, central Morocco, and northern Algeria. Berta 'to eat' Burmese / thon: 'three' Commonly realized as an affricate .Bengali ˈreward' Only occurs in loanwords. See Bengali phonology Catalan Most dialects 'theta' Can be replaced by in Spanish names and loanwords. See Catalan phonology Some Aragonese speakers 'five' Corresponds to and in other varieties. See Catalan phonology Cornish 'eight' Emiliano-RomagnolFig. 11 La zeta bolognese 'face' English Most dialects thin 'thin' See English phonology Galician Most dialects 'zero' Merges with into in Western dialects. See Galician phonology Greek 'sea' See Modern Greek phonology Gweno 'eye' Gwich’in 'pants' Halkomelem 'tree' Hän 'I want' Harsusi 'two' Hebrew Iraqi 'Hebrew' (language) See Modern Hebrew phonology Yemenite Hlai Basadung 'one' Icelandic 'thing' (assembly) Italian Tuscan 'the captains' Intervocalic allophone of . See Italian phonology and Tuscan gorgia Kabyle 'light' (noun) Karen Sgaw သၢ 'three' Karuk yiθa 'one' Kickapoo neθwi 'three' Kwama 'to laugh' Leonese ceru 'zero' Lorediakarkar 'four' Malay 'Tuesday' Mostly occurs in Arabic loanwords originally containing this sound, but the writing is not distinguished from the Arabic loanwords with the sound and this sound must be learned separately by the speakers. See Malay phonology. Massa 'five' Occitan Gascon macipon '(male) child' Limited the sub-dialects of the region of Castillonais, in the Ariège department. Vivaro-Alpine chin 'dog' Limited to Vénosc, in the Isère department. Old Persian xšāyaθiya 'king' Does not occur in modern Persian. Saanich TÁŦES 'eight' Sardinian Nuorese 'meat' Scottish Gaelic Tayinloan and Jura 'stream' Dialectal allophone of before in certain Argyll dialects. Shark Bay 'four' Shawnee 'three' Sioux Nakoda 'four' Varies with .Spanish European 'to hunt' Interdental. See Spanish phonology and Seseo. This sound is not contrastive in the Americas, southern Andalusia or the Canary Islands. Castilian 'wall' Word-final, especially in Madrid. Corresponds to in standard Spanish. Swahili 'value' Mostly occurs in Arabic loanwords originally containing this sound. Tanacross 'embers' Toda 'nine' Turkmen sen 'you' Realization of the /z/ phoneme Tutchone Northern 'pants' Southern Upland Yuman Havasupai 'five' Hualapai Yavapai Venetian Eastern dialects 'five' Corresponds to in other dialects. Wolaytta 'flower' Welsh 'seven' Zhuang 'language' ZotungStandard dialect of Lungngokacciade 'I go' Realized as and in Aikap and other Northern dialects. It can also be voiced depending on the preceding consonant.

Voiceless dental approximant

A voiceless dental approximant is a similar sound with less turbulent airflow. It is reported for some dialects of Chilean Spanish. The IPA has no dedicated symbol that represents this sound, but it may be transcribed as (a lowered ), or (a lowered and advanced ) if interdental.

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Spanish Chilean 'partner/buddy' () Allophone of ; may be either dental or interdental . In variation with numerous other allophones (depending on position) with varying degrees of stigmatization, with up to 15 allophones of in total: three approximants , ten fricatives , one affricate , and one null phone .

See also Voiced dental fricative Voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative Voiced dental sibilant Voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant Pronunciation of English th Index of phonetics topics

Notes

References

External links

Discrimination of Unvoiced Fricatives using Machine Learning Methods