Fricative consonant

Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These are the lower lip against the upper teeth in the case of , or the back of the tongue against the soft palate in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach. This turbulent airflow is called frication. A particular subset of fricatives are the sibilants (sometimes referred to as stridents). When forming a sibilant, one still is forcing air through a narrow channel, but in addition the tongue is curled lengthwise to direct the air over the edge of the teeth. English , , , and are examples of this.

Sibilant fricatives

voiceless coronal sibilant
voiced coronal sibilant
ejective coronal sibilant
voiceless dental sibilant
voiced dental sibilant
voiceless postalveolar sibilant (laminal)
voiced postalveolar sibilant (laminal)
voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant (domed, partially palatalized)
voiced palato-alveolar sibilant (domed, partially palatalized)
voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant (laminal, palatalized)
voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant (laminal, palatalized)
voiceless retroflex sibilant (apical or sub-apical)
voiced retroflex sibilant (apical or sub-apical)

All sibilants are coronal, but may be dental, alveolar, postalveolar, or palatal (retroflex) within that range. However, at the postalveolar place of articulation the tongue may take several shapes: domed, laminal, or apical, and each of these is given a separate symbol and a separate name. Prototypical retroflexes are sub-apical and palatal, but they are usually written with the same symbol as the apical postalveolars. The alveolars and dentals may also be either apical or laminal, but this difference is indicated with diacritics rather than with separate symbols.

Central non-sibilant fricatives

Lateral fricatives

voiceless coronal lateral fricative
voiced coronal lateral fricative
voiceless retroflex lateral fricative
voiceless palatal lateral fricative (needs a raising diacritic)
voiceless velar lateral fricative

Symbols used for both fricatives and approximants

No language distinguishes voiced fricatives from approximants at these places, so the same symbol is used for both. For the pharyngeals and epiglottals, approximants are more numerous than fricatives. A fricative realization may be specified by adding the uptack to the letters, . Likewise, the downtack may be added to specify an approximant realization, .

Pseudo-fricatives

The glottal "fricatives" are actually unaccompanied phonation states of the glottis, without any accompanying manner, fricative or otherwise. However, they are called fricatives for historical reasons.

In addition, is usually called a "voiceless labial-velar fricative", but it is actually an approximant. True doubly-articulated fricatives do not appear to occur in any language.

Languages

See table of consonants for a table of fricatives in English.

Ubykh may be the language with the most fricatives, with 27, some of which do not have symbols or diacritics in the IPA. This number actually outstrips the number of all consonants in English (which has 24 consonants). By contrast, many languages have no phonemic fricatives at all, and this is a common feature of many Australian Aboriginal languages.