The dental fricative or interdental fricative is a
fricative consonant
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...
pronounced with the tip of the tongue pressing under the teeth.
There are several types (those used in English being written as ''th''):
*
Voiced dental fricative
The voiced dental fricative is a consonant sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the ''th'' sound in ''father''. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is eth, or and was taken from the Old Engl ...
- as in the
English ''this'', .
*
Voiceless dental fricative
The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to most English speakers as the 'th' in ''think''. Though rather rare as a phoneme among the world's languages, it is encount ...
- as in the English
''thin'', .
[
* Dental ejective fricative
]
See also
* Pronunciation of English ⟨th⟩
References
{{IPA navigation
Fricative consonants
Dental consonants