Interdental consonants are produced by placing the tip of the tongue between the upper and lower front teeth. That differs from
dental consonant
A dental consonant is a consonant articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , . In some languages, dentals are distinguished from other groups, such as alveolar consonants, in which the tongue contacts the gum ridge. Dental c ...
s, which are
articulated
An articulated vehicle is a vehicle which has a permanent or semi-permanent pivot joint in its construction, allowing it to turn more sharply. There are many kinds, from heavy equipment to buses, trams and trains. Steam locomotives were someti ...
with the tongue against the ''back'' of the upper incisors. No language is known to contrast interdental and dental consonants.
Interdental consonants may be transcribed with the
extIPA
The Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for Disordered Speech, commonly abbreviated extIPA , are a set of letters and diacritics devised by the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association to augment the Internatio ...
subscript, plus superscript bridge, as in , if precision is required, but it is more common to transcribe them as advanced alveolars, as in .
Interdental consonants are rare cross-linguistically. Interdental realisations of otherwise-dental or alveolar consonants may occur as idiosyncrasies or as coarticulatory effects of a neighbouring interdental sound. The most commonly-occurring interdental consonants are the non-
sibilant
Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...
fricatives (sibilants may be dental but do not appear as interdentals). Apparently, interdentals do not contrast with dental consonants in any language.
Voiced and voiceless interdental fricatives appear in
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
as the initial sounds of words like 'then' and 'thin'. In
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
, the consonants are more likely to be dental .
An interdental occurs in some varieties of
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
, and it may also occur in some varieties of English though the distribution and the usage of interdental in English are not clear.
s are found in about a dozen
Philippine languages
The Philippine languages or Philippinic are a proposed group by R. David Paul Zorc (1986) and Robert Blust (1991; 2005; 2019) that include all the languages of the Philippines and northern Sulawesi, Indonesia—except Sama–Bajaw (languages ...
, including
Kagayanen (
Manobo
The Lumad are a group of Austronesian indigenous people in the southern Philippines. It is a Cebuano term meaning "native" or "indigenous". The term is short for Katawhang Lumad (Literally: "indigenous people"), the autonym officially adopte ...
branch), Karaga
Mandaya
The Lumad are a group of Austronesian indigenous people in the southern Philippines. It is a Cebuano term meaning "native" or "indigenous". The term is short for Katawhang Lumad (Literally: "indigenous people"), the autonym officially adopte ...
(
Mansakan branch),
Kalagan (
Mansakan branch),
Southern Catanduanes Bicolano, and several varieties of
Kalinga Kalinga may refer to:
Geography, linguistics and/or ethnology
* Kalinga (historical region), a historical region of India
** Kalinga (Mahabharata), an apocryphal kingdom mentioned in classical Indian literature
** Kalinga script, an ancient writ ...
,
as well as in the
Bauchi language
Bauchi (''Bauci, Baushi'') is a cluster of Kainji languages spoken in Rafi, Nigeria LGA, Niger State, Nigeria.
Languages
The Baushi languages are (Blench 2012):
*Samburu
*Ndəkə (Madaka) - three clans: Undo, Sambora, Jibwa
*Hupɨnɨ (Supa ...
s of Nigeria.
[Roger Blench]
Recent research in the languages of Northwest Nigeria: new languages, unknown sounds
Jos Linguistic Circle, 2011.
Interdental occurs in some dialects of
Amis.
Mapuche
The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who sha ...
has interdental , , and .
In most
Indigenous Australian languages
The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...
, there is a series of "dental" consonants, written ''th'', ''nh'', and (in some languages) ''lh''. They are always
laminal
A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact
with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
(pronounced by touching with the blade of the tongue) but may be formed in one of three different ways, depending on the language, the speaker, and how carefully the speaker pronounces the sound. They are apical interdental with the ''tip'' of the tongue visible between the teeth, as in ''th'' in American English; laminal interdental with the tip of the tongue down behind the lower teeth, so that the ''blade'' is visible between the teeth; and
denti-alveolar
In linguistics, a denti-alveolar consonant or dento-alveolar consonant is a consonant that is articulated with a flat tongue against the alveolar ridge and the upper teeth, such as and in languages such as French, Italian and Spanish. That is, ...
, that is, with both the tip and the blade making contact with the back of the upper teeth and alveolar ridge, as in French ''t'', ''d'', ''n'', ''l''.
See also
*
Bidental consonant Bidental consonants are consonants articulated with both the lower and upper teeth. They are normally found only in speech pathology, and are distinct from interdental consonants such as , which involve the tongue articulated between the teeth rathe ...
References
*
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Phonetics
Coronal consonants