A voiced dental fricative is a consonant sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to most English-speakers as the "th" 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, and which in those languages could stand for either a voiced or unvoiced (inter)dental non-sibilant fricative. 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.
The fricatives and their unvoiced counterparts 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
upright=0.6|thumb|class=skin-invert-image|[[Sagittal section of a voiced dental fricative]]
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
Voiced dental fricative
{| class="wikitable"
!colspan=2| Language !! Word !! IPA !! Meaning !! Notes
|-
|colspan=2| Albanian || || || 'idol' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Aleut|| || || 'house' ||
|-
| rowspan="4" | Arabic || Modern Standard || rowspan="4" | || rowspan="3" | || rowspan="4" | 'gold' || Represented by the letter ḏāl. See Arabic phonology
|-
|Gulf
|
|-
|Najdi
|
|-
|Tunisian
|
|See Tunisian Arabic phonology
|-
|rowspan=2| 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.
|-
|colspan=2| 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 .
|-
|colspan=2| Bashkir || | / || || 'goose' ||
|-
|colspan=2| Berta ||colspan=2 align=center| || 'to sweep' ||
|-
|colspan=2| Burmese || || || 'inlander' || Commonly realized as an affricate .
|-
| colspan="2" |Bengali
|
|
|ˈslaughter'
|Only occurs in loanwords. See Bengali phonology
|-
|colspan=2| Catalan || || || 'each' || Fricative or approximant. Allophone of . See Catalan phonology
|-
| colspan="2" |Cornish
|
|[ɔmˈðiskwɛːðɛz]
|'to feature'
|See Cornish phonology and Standard Written Form
|-
|Cree
|Woods Cree (th-dialect)
|
|
|'I'
|Reflex of Proto-Algonguian *. Shares features of a sonorant.
|-
| colspan="2" | Dahalo || colspan="2" align="center" | || || Weak fricative or approximant. It is a common intervocalic allophone of , and may be simply a plosive instead.
|
|
| 'to do'
| Alternative realization of etymological . Can also be realized as .
|-
| German || Austrian || || || 'unfortunately' || Intervocalic allophone of in casual speech. See Standard German phonology
|-
|colspan=2| Greek || / || || 'laurel' || See Modern Greek phonology
|-
|colspan=2| Gwich'in || || || 'you want' ||
|-
|colspan=2| Hän || || || 'hide' ||
|-
|colspan=2| Harsusi ||colspan=2 align=center| || 'bee' ||
|-
| rowspan=2|Hebrew || Iraqi || || || 'my lord' || Commonly pronounced . See Modern Hebrew phonology
|-
| Temani || / ğaḏol || || 'large, great' || See Yemenite Hebrew
|-
| Judeo-Spanish || Many dialects || / || || 'creator' || Intervocalic allophone of in many dialects.
|-
|colspan=2|Kabyle || || || 'to be exhausted' ||
|-
|colspan=2| Kurdish |||| || || An approximant; postvocalic allophone of . See Kurdish phonology
|-
| Malay || Standard || azan || || 'azan' || Only in Arabic loanwords; usually replaced with . See Malay phonology
|-
|colspan=2| 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 .
|-
|colspan=2| Northern Sámi || || || 'science' ||
|-
| Persian || Early New Persian, Early Judeo-Persian || || || 'nothing' || Northern and central dialects. Allophone of , mainly after an oral vowel. See Portuguese phonology
|-
|colspan=2| 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.
|-
|colspan=2| Shughni || || || 'smoke, fumes' || See Shughni phonology
|-
| Sioux || Lakota || || || 'five' || Sometimes with
|-
|colspan=2| 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.|| || || || Allophone of
|}
Dental approximant
{| class="wikitable"
!colspan=2| Language !! Word !! IPA !! Meaning !! Notes
|-
| colspan="2" | Assyrian|| / werda || ]|| 'flower'|| Common in the Tyari, Barwari, and Western dialects. <br />Corresponds to in other varieties.
|-
|colspan=2| Basque || || || 'horn' || Allophone of
|-
|colspan=2| 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. See Spanish phonology
|}
- Danish is actually a velarized alveolar approximant.
- Ayam language used ɡ͡ðʷ and ɡ͡ðˤʷ for ⨋
See also
- Voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative
- Index of phonetics articles