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The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is T. The IPA symbol is the Greek letter theta, which is used for this sound in Greek, and the sound is thus often referred to as "theta". It is familiar to English speakers as the 'th' in thing.
The dental fricatives 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 teeth, as they are with other dental consonants.
Many commonly spoken languages, such as German, French, Japanese, and Chinese, lack this sound. Native speakers of those languages sometimes have difficulty enunciating or distinguishing it, and replace it with a voiceless alveolar fricative or a voiceless dental plosive (or even a voiceless labiodental fricative, see Hong Kong English). In Indian English, it is always replaced with the aspirated voiceless dental plosive.
Native speakers of Slavic languages typically substitute a voiceless alveolar affricate when speaking English.
Features
Features of the voiceless dental fricative:
- Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
- Its place of articulation is dental which means it is articulated with the tongue on either the lower or the upper teeth, or both.
- Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
- It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
- It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
- The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.
In English
The voiceless dental fricative occurs in English, and it is the sound denoted by the 'th' digraph in thing and bath. It is different from the sound represented by 'th' in this and the, which is the voiced dental fricative.
In Old English, the letters þ and ð were used interchangeably for this sound and the voiced dental fricative, but they have been dropped from modern usage in favour of the 'th' digraph. Although the same digraph is used for the voiced and voiceless forms, these sounds are not interchangeable in spoken English.
See also: Pronunciation of English th
Other Languages
The voiceless dental fricative is relatively rare among the world's languages.
Spanish
Peninsular Spanish uses the letter "z" (or "c" before i and e); this is believed to have evolved from an earlier affricate * sound. Dialects in Andalusia and Latin America, however, underwent a different phonetic evolution and the old affricate /ts/ merged with /s/, an innovation commonly known as seseo.Greek
Modern Greek uses the letter θ (theta), which was adopted for the IPA symbol.Albanian
Albanian uses the digraph "th"; unlike English, however, "th" is not used for its voiced counterpart (as in this soothes). Instead, the diagraph "dh" is used for that purpose.Welsh
Welsh uses the diagraph "th"; unlike English, however, "th" is not used for its voiced counterpart (as in this soothes). Instead, the diagraph "dd" is used for that purpose.
Icelandic
Icelandic uses the letter þ (thorn) for a similar sound, a voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative. Þ is used only if the fricative is the first letter in the word, ð is used otherwise but never as the first letter. Old English used both þ and ð (eth) indiscrimately for both the voiceless and voiced dental fricative; in modern English both were replaced by the diagraph "th".
Northern Sami
Northern Sami uses the letter ŧ.Hebrew
In most vocalizations of modern Hebrew this consonant is not used, but Ancient Hebrew used the letter ת (thav without dagesh. With dagesh it becomes תּ, tav)) for this sound. In several vocalizations, this distinction has been retained (e.g., Teimani).
Arabic
Arabic uses the letter "ﺙ" (theh).
Swahili
Swahili have adopted the sound from Arabic in loan words, and spell it "th".
Turkmen
In Turkmen, /θ/ is spelled with the letter "s", and /ð/ is written with "z".
Huron
The written form of the Huron language makes use of the fricative, using it to write the "th" sound.See also
Fricativa dental sorda | Stimmloser dentaler Frikativ | Consonne fricative dentale sourde | Fricativa dentale sorda | 無声歯摩擦音 | Fricativa dental surda | Consoană fricativă dentală surdă | Tonlös dental frikativa | 無聲齒摩擦音
"Voiceless dental fricative"