Voiceless dental fricative

From Freepedia

IPA – number	130
IPA – text	θ
IPA – image	Image:Xsampa-T2.png
entity	θ
X-SAMPA	T
Kirshenbaum	T
Sound sample ▶(?)

The voiceless dental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is θ, 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".

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.

Contents 1 Features 2 In English 3 Other Languages 4 See also

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.

• Castilian Spanish uses the letter "z" (or "c" before i and e); this is believed to have evolved from an earlier "ts" sound. Latin American Spanish, however, has changed this sound to plain /s/. Contrary to popular belief, Castilian Spanish only pronounces the z, and c (before i and e) with the "th"-sound; s is pronounced as in other European languages.
• Modern Greek uses the letter θ (Theta), the IPA symbol.
• Albanian and Welsh both use the digraph "th"; unlike English, however, th is not used for its voiced counterpart (as in these clothes). Instead, "dh" (in Albanian) and "dd" (in Welsh) are used for that purpose.
• Icelandic uses the letter þ (thorn). Old English used both þ and ð (edh) indiscrimately for both the voiceless and voiced dental fricative; both were replaced with th.
• Northern Sami uses the letter ŧ.
• Arabic contains the sound, and represents it with the letter "ﺙ".
• Some dialects of Swahili have adopted the sound from Arabic in loan words, and spell it "th".

See also

• list of phonetics topics

Consonants (List, table)	See also: IPA, Vowels
Pulmonics Bilabial Lab'den. Dental Alveolar Postalv. Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn. Epiglottal Glottal   Non-pulmonics and other symbols Plosives p b t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ  Clicks  ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ Nasals m ɱ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ  Implo­sives  ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ Trills ʙ r • ʀ •  Ejec­tives  pʼ tʼ kʼ qʼ sʼ Flaps & Taps • • ɾ ɽ • Other laterals  ɺ ɫ Fricatives ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Co-articulated approximants  ʍ w ɥ Lat. Fricatives ɬ ɮ • • • Other fricatives  ɕ ʑ ɧ    Approximants    β̞ ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ Affricates  ʦ ʣ ʧ ʤ Lat. Appr'mants l ɭ ʎ ʟ Co-articulated stops  kp ɡb ŋm
This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged impossible.