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 t ...
pronounced with the tip of the tongue against 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 En ...
- 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 English speakers as the 'th' in ''think''. Though rather rare as a phoneme in the world's inventory of languages, it is e ...
- as in the English
''thin'', .
[
* Dental ejective fricative
]
See also
* Pronunciation of English ⟨th⟩
In English, the digraph represents in most cases one of two different phonemes: the voiced dental fricative (as in ''this'') and the voiceless dental fricative (''thing''). More rarely, it can stand for (''Thailand'', ''Thomas'') or t ...
References
{{IPA navigation
Fricative consonants
Dental consonants