Voiced dental fricative

Voiced dental non-sibilant fricative

Voiced dental non-sibilant fricative
ð
IPA number	131
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ð
Unicode (hex)	U+00F0
X-SAMPA	D
Kirshenbaum	D
Braille
Image
Sound

Voiced dental approximant
ð
ð̞

The voiced 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 eth, or [ð]. This was taken from the Old English letter eth, which could stand for either a voiced or unvoiced interdental non-sibilant fricative. This symbol is also sometimes used to represent the dental approximant, a similar sound not known to contrast with a dental non-sibilant fricative in any language, though that is more clearly written with the lowering diacritic, ⟨ð̞⟩. The dental non-sibilant 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 upper teeth, as they are with other dental consonants. It is familiar to English speakers as the th sound in father.

This sound, and its unvoiced counterpart, are rare phonemes. The great majority of European and Asian languages, such as German, French, Persian, Japanese, and Chinese, lack this sound. Native speakers of those languages in which the sound is not present often have difficulty enunciating or distinguishing it, and replace it with a voiced alveolar sibilant, a voiced dental 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 this sound (and or the unvoiced variant) is present. Most of mainland Europe lacks the sound; however, some "periphery" languages as Gascon, Welsh, English, Danish, Icelandic, Elfdalian, Northern Sami, Mari, Greek, Albanian, Sardinian, some dialects of Basque, and most speakers of the Iberian Romance languages have this 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 Standard Arabic.

Features

Features of the voiced dental non-sibilant 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. It does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.
• Its place of articulation is dental, which means it is articulated with the tongue at either the upper or lower teeth, or both. (Most stops and liquids described as dental are actually denti-alveolar.)
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

In the following transcriptions, the undertack diacritic may be used to indicate an approximant [ð̞].

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Albanian		idhull	[iðuɫ]	'idol'
Aleut	Atkan dialect	dax̂	[ðɑχ]	'eye'
Arabic	Standard	ذهب	[ˈðahab]	'gold'	See Arabic phonology
Bashkir		ҡыҙ	[qɯð́]	'girl'
Basque		adar	[að̞ar]	'horn'	Allophone of /d/
Berber	Kabyle	ḏuḇ	[ðuβ]	'to be exhausted'
Berta		[fɛ̀ːðɑ̀nɑ́]		'to sweep'
Catalan		fada	[ˈfað̞ə]	'fairy'	Allophone of /d/. See Catalan phonology
Danish		hvid	[ˈʋið̞ˀ]	'white'	Allophone of /d/ in the syllable coda. See Danish phonology
Elfdalian		baiða	[ˈbaɪða]	'wait'
English		this	[ðɪs]	'this'	See English phonology
Fijian		ciwa	[ðiwa]	'nine'
German	Austrian	leider	[ˈlaɛ̯ða]	'unfortunately'	Intervocallic allophone of /d/ in casual speech. See German phonology
Greek		δάφνη dáfni	[ˈðafni]	'laurel'	See Modern Greek phonology
Gwich’in		niidhàn	[niːðân]	'you want'
Harsusi		[ðebeːr]		'bee'
Hän		ë̀dhä̀	[ə̂ðɑ̂]	'hide'
Hebrew	Iraqi	אדוני	[ʔaðoˈnaj]	'my lord'	Commonly pronounced [d]. See Modern Hebrew phonology
Icelandic		bróðir	[ˈproːðir]	'brother'	Often closer to an approximant. See Icelandic phonology
Kagayanen		?	[kað̞aɡ]	'spirit'
Mari	Eastern dialect	шодо	[ʃoðo]	'lung'
Northern Sami		dieđa	[d̥ieðɑ]	'science'
Occitan	Gascon	que divi	[ke ˈð̞iwi]	'what I should'	Allophone of /d/. See Occitan phonology
Portuguese	European	nada	[ˈnaðɐ]	'nothing'	Northern and central dialects. Allophone of /d/, mainly after an oral vowel. See Portuguese phonology
	Fluminense [citation needed]	compadre	[kũˈpaðɾi]	'compadre', 'buddy'	Allophone of postvocallic /d/ in consonant clusters with /ɾ/, in relaxed speech
Sioux	Nakota	?	[ˈðaptã]	'five'
Sardinian		nidu	[ˈnið̞u]	'nest'	Allophone of /d/
Spanish	Most dialects	dedo	[ˈd̪e̞ð̞o̞]	'finger'	Allophone of /d/. See Spanish phonology
	Peninsular	jazmín	[xäðˈmĩn]	'Jasmine'	Allophone of /θ/ before voiced consonants, often in free variation with /θ/.
Swahili		dhambi	[ðɑmbi]	'sin'
Syriac	Western Neo-Aramaic	ܐܚܕ	[aħːeð]	'to take'
Tamil		ஒன்பது	[onbʌðɯ]	'nine'	See Tamil phonology
Tanacross		dhet	[ðet]	'liver'
Turkmen		gaz	[ɡäːð]	'goose'
Tutchone	Northern	edhó	[eðǒ]	'hide'
	Southern	adhǜ	[aðɨ̂]
Welsh		bardd	[barð]	'bard'	See Welsh phonology
Zapotec	Tilquiapan				Allophone of /d/

Voiced dental sibilant

Voiced dental sibilant
z̪

The voiced dental sibilant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨z̪⟩, a combination of the letter for the voiced alveolar sibilant and a diacritic indicating dental articulation.

Features

Features of the voiced dental sibilant:

• Its manner of articulation is sibilant fricative, which means it is generally produced by channeling air flow along a groove in the back of the tongue up to the place of articulation, at which point it is focused against the sharp edge of the nearly clenched teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is dental, which in case of this consonant means it is articulated with the tongue at lower teeth, though in some languages it may actually be denti-alveolar.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• 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.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Bulgarian		езеро	[ˈɛz̪ɛro]	'lake'	Contrasts with palatalized form.
Italian		caso	[ˈkäz̪o]	'case'	See Italian phonology
Macedonian		зошто	[ˈz̪o̞ʃt̪o̞]	'why'	See Macedonian phonology
Polish		zero	[ˈz̪ɛrɔ]	'zero'	See Polish phonology
Romanian		zar	[z̪är]	'dice'	Apical. See Romanian phonology
Russian		заезжать zaezžat'	[z̪əɪˈʑʑætʲ]	'to pick up'	Contrasts with palatalized form. See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatian		зима / zima	[z̪ǐːmä]	'winter'	See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Ukrainian		зуб	[z̪ub]	'tooth'	See Ukrainian phonology

See also

• Voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative
• Sibilant consonant#Possible combinations
• Index of phonetics topics

Bibliography

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