Bidental consonants are consonants

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 sometim ...

with both the lower and upper teeth. They are normally found only in

speech pathology Speech is a human vocal communication using language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which hum ...

, and are distinct from

interdental consonant Interdental consonants are produced by placing the tip of the tongue between the upper and lower front teeth. That differs from dental consonants, which are articulated with the tongue against the ''back'' of the upper incisors. No language is k ...

s such as , which involve the tongue articulated between the teeth rather than the teeth themselves. The diacritic for bidental consonants in the extensions to the IPA is the same superscript plus subscript bridge, . This is used for sounds most commonly found in disordered speech: *A bidental percussive, , produced by striking the teeth against each other (gnashing or chattering the teeth). *A

voiceless bidental fricative The voiceless bidental fricative is a rare consonantal sound. The only natural language known to use it is the Shapsug dialect of Adyghe, where it appears as a variant of . People with hypoglossia (abnormally small tongue) may use it for targe ...

, , a fricative made through clenched teeth with no involvement of the tongue or the lips, a "bidental (consonant) produced by air passing through the closed front teeth." *A voiced bidental fricative, . *Bidental aspiration of another consonant, e.g. . People with

hypoglossia Hypoglossia is a short, incompletely developed tongue. It can occur either as an isolated malformation or in association with other deformities, particularly limb Limb may refer to: Science and technology * Limb (anatomy), an appendage of a human ...

(abnormally small tongue) may use bidental fricatives for target and . There is at least one confirmed attestation of a bidental consonant in normal language. The

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

sub-dialect of the Shapsug dialect of Adyghe has a

where other dialects have , as in хы "six" and дахэ "beautiful". It has been transcribed as , reflecting its value in other dialects, but there is no frication at the

velum Velum may refer to: Human anatomy * Superior medullary velum, anterior medullary velum or valve of Vieussens, white matter, in the brain, which stretches between the superior cerebellar peduncles ** Frenulum of superior medullary velum, a slightl ...

. The teeth themselves are the only constriction: "The lips refully open, the teeth clenched and the tongue flat, the air passing between the teeth; the sound is intermediate between and ". This is better transcribed phonetically as , since has no place of articulation of its own.

References

External links

Chart of extended IPA symbols for disordered speech
(PDF) Place of articulation {{phonetics-stub