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 [ð] and was taken from the Old English and Icelandic letter eth, which could stand for either a voiced or unvoiced (inter)dental non-sibilant fricative. Such fricatives are often called "interdental" because they are often produced with the tongue between the upper and lower teeth (as in Received Pronunciation), and not just against the back of the upper teeth, as they are with other dental consonants.

Voiced dental fricative
ð
IPA Number	131
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ð
Unicode (hex)	U+00F0
X-SAMPA	D
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Voiced dental approximant
ð̞

The letter ⟨ð⟩ is sometimes used to represent the dental approximant, a similar sound, which no language is known to contrast with a dental non-sibilant fricative,[1] but the approximant is more clearly written with the lowering diacritic: ⟨ð̞⟩. Very rarely used variant transcriptions of the dental approximant include ⟨ʋ̠⟩ (retracted [ʋ]), ⟨ɹ̟⟩ (advanced [ɹ]) and ⟨ɹ̪⟩ (dentalized [ɹ]). It has been proposed that either a turned ⟨ð⟩ or reversed ⟨ð⟩ be used as a dedicated symbol for the dental approximant, but despite occasional usage, this has not gained general acceptance.[2]

The fricative and its unvoiced counterpart are rare phonemes. Almost all languages of Europe and Asia, such as German, French, Persian, Japanese, and Mandarin, lack the sound. Native speakers of languages without the sound often have difficulty enunciating or distinguishing it, and they replace it with a voiced alveolar sibilant [z], a voiced dental stop or voiced alveolar stop [d], or a voiced labiodental fricative [v]; known respectively as th-alveolarization, th-stopping, and th-fronting. As for Europe, there seems to be a great arc where the sound (and/or its unvoiced variant) is present. Most of Mainland Europe lacks the sound. However, some "periphery" languages as Gascon, Welsh, English, Icelandic, Elfdalian, Kven, Northern Sami, Inari Sami, Skolt Sami, Ume Sami, Mari, Greek, Albanian, Sardinian, some dialects of Basque and most speakers of Spanish have the sound in their consonant inventories, as phonemes or allophones.

Within Turkic languages, Bashkir and Turkmen have both voiced and voiceless dental non-sibilant fricatives among their consonants. Among Semitic languages, they are used in Turoyo, Modern Standard Arabic, albeit not by all speakers of modern Arabic dialects, as well as in some dialects of Hebrew and Assyrian Neo-Aramaic.

Features

Features of the voiced dental non-sibilant 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. It does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.

• Its place of articulation is dental, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the upper teeth, termed respectively apical and laminal. Note that most stops and liquids described as dental are actually denti-alveolar.

• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.

• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.

• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.

• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

In the following transcriptions, the undertack diacritic may be used to indicate an approximant [ð̞].

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Albanian		idhull	[iðuɫ]	'idol'
Aleut	Atkan dialect	dax̂	[ðɑχ]	'eye'
Arabic	Modern Standard[3]	ذهب‎	[ˈðahab]	'gold'	See Arabic phonology
	Gulf
	Najdi
	Tunisian				See Tunisian Arabic phonology
Aromanian[4]		zală	[ˈðalə]	'butter whey'	Corresponds to [z] in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic		wada‎	[waːð̞a]	'doing'	Common in the Tyari, Barwari and Chaldean Neo-Aramaic dialects. Corresponds to [d] in other varieties.
Asturian	Some dialects	fazer	[fäˈðeɾ]	'to do'	Alternative realization of etymological ⟨z⟩. Can also be realized as [θ].
Bashkir		ҡаҙ/qað	[qɑð]	'goose'
Basque[5]		adar	[að̞ar]	'horn'	Allophone of /d/
Berta		[fɛ̀ːðɑ̀nɑ́]		'to sweep'
Burmese[6]		အညာသား	[ʔəɲàd̪͡ðá]	'inlander'	Commonly realized as an affricate [d̪͡ð].[7]
Catalan[8]		fada	[ˈfað̞ə]	'fairy'	Fricative or approximant. Allophone of /d/. See Catalan phonology
Cree	Woods Cree (th-dialect)	/nitha	[niða]	'I'	Reflex of Proto-Algonguian *r. Shares features of a sonorant.
Dahalo[9]					Weak fricative or approximant. It is a common intervocalic allophone of /d̪/, and may be simply a plosive [d̪] instead.[9]
Elfdalian		baiða	[ˈbaɪða]	'wait'
English		this	[ðɪs]	'this'	See English phonology
Extremaduran		ḥazel	[häðel]	'to do'	Realization of etymological 'z'. Can also be realized as [θ]
Fijian		ciwa	[ðiwa]	'nine'
Galician	Some dialects[10]	fazer	[fɐˈðeɾ]	'to do'	Alternative realization of etymological ⟨z⟩. Can also be realized as [θ, z, z̺].
German	Austrian[11]	leider	[ˈlaɛ̯ða]	'unfortunately'	Intervocalic allophone of /d/ in casual speech. See Standard German phonology
Greek		δάφνη/dáfni	[ˈðafni]	'laurel'	See Modern Greek phonology
Gwich’in		niidhàn	[niːðân]	'you want'
Hän		ë̀dhä̀	[ə̂ðɑ̂]	'hide'
Harsusi		[ðebeːr]		'bee'
Hebrew	Iraqi	אדוני‎	[ʔaðoˈnaj]	'my lord'	Commonly pronounced [d]. See Modern Hebrew phonology
Icelandic		eða	[eɛːðä]	'or'
Judeo-Spanish	Many dialects	קריאדֿור‎ / kriador	[kɾiaˈðor]	'creator'	Intervocalic allophone of /d/ in many dialects.
Kabyle		ḏuḇ	[ðuβ]	'to be exhausted'
Kagayanen[12]		kalag	[kað̞aɡ]	'spirit'
Kurdish					An approximant; postvocalic allophone of /d/. See Kurdish phonology.
Mari	Eastern dialect	шодо	[ʃoðo]	'lung'
Norman	Jèrriais	méthe	[með]	'mother'
Northern Sami		dieđa	[d̥ieðɑ]	'science'
Norwegian	Meldal dialect[13]	i	[ð̩ʲ˕ː]	'in'	Syllabic palatalized frictionless approximant[13] corresponding to /iː/ in other dialects. See Norwegian phonology
Occitan	Gascon	que divi	[ke ˈð̞iwi]	'what I should'	Allophone of /d/. See Occitan phonology
Portuguese	European[14]	nada	[ˈn̪äðɐ]	'nothing'	Northern and central dialects. Allophone of /d/, mainly after an oral vowel.[15] See Portuguese phonology
Sardinian		nidu	[ˈnið̞u]	'nest'	Allophone of /d/
Scottish Gaelic		Màiri	[ˈmaːðə]	'Mary'	Some dialects (Lèodhas and Barraigh)[16]
Sioux	Lakota	zapta	[ˈðaptã]	'five'	Sometimes with [z]
Spanish	Most dialects[17]	dedo	[ˈd̪e̞ð̞o̞]	'finger'	Ranges from close fricative to approximant.[18] Allophone of /d/. See Spanish phonology
	Peninsular[19]	jazmín	[xäðˈmĩn]	'Jasmine'	Fricative. Allophone of /θ/ before voiced consonants, often in free variation with [θ]
Swahili		dhambi	[ðɑmbi]	'sin'	Mostly occurs in Arabic loanwords originally containing this sound.
Swedish	Central Standard[20]	bada	[ˈbɑːð̞ä]	'to take a bath'	An approximant;[20] allophone of /d/ in casual speech. See Swedish phonology
	Some dialects[13]	i	[ð̩ʲ˕ː]	'in'	A syllabic palatalized frictionless approximant[13] corresponding to /iː/ in Central Standard Swedish. See Swedish phonology
Syriac	Western Neo-Aramaic	ܐܚܕ	[aħːeð]	'to take'
Tamil		ஒன்பது	[wʌnbʌðɯ]	'nine'	See Tamil phonology
Tanacross		dhet	[ðet]	'liver'
Turkmen		gaz	[ɡäːð]	'goose'
Tutchone	Northern	edhó	[eðǒ]	'hide'
	Southern	adhǜ	[aðɨ̂]
Venetian		mezorno	[meˈðorno]	'midday'
Welsh		bardd	[barð]	'bard'	See Welsh phonology
Zapotec	Tilquiapan[21]				Allophone of /d/

Danish [ð] is actually a velarized alveolar approximant.[22][23]

See also

• Voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative
• Sibilant consonant § Possible combinations
• Index of phonetics articles

Notes

1. Olson et al. (2010:210)
2. See for example Ball, Martin J.; Howard, Sara J.; Miller, Kirk (2018). "Revisions to the extIPA chart". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 48 (2): 155–164. doi:10.1017/S0025100317000147.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
3. Thelwall & Sa'Adeddin (1990:37)
4. Pop (1938), p. 30.
5. Hualde (1991:99–100)
6. Watkins (2001:291–292)
7. Watkins (2001:292)
8. Carbonell & Llisterri (1992:55)
9. Maddieson et al. (1993:34)
10. "Atlas Lingüístico Gallego (ALGa) | Instituto da Lingua Galega - ILG". ilg.usc.es. Retrieved 2019-11-25.
11. Sylvia Moosmüller (2007). "Vowels in Standard Austrian German: An Acoustic-Phonetic and Phonological Analysis" (PDF). p. 6. Retrieved March 9, 2013.
12. Olson et al. (2010:206–207)
13. Vanvik (1979:14)
14. Cruz-Ferreira (1995:92)
15. Mateus & d'Andrade (2000:11)
16. http://doug5181.wixsite.com/sgdsmaps/blank-wlxn6. Missing or empty |title= (help)
17. Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003:255)
18. Phonetic studies such as Quilis (1981) have found that Spanish voiced stops may surface as spirants with various degrees of constriction. These allophones are not limited to regular fricative articulations, but range from articulations that involve a near complete oral closure to articulations involving a degree of aperture quite close to vocalization
19. Cotton & Sharp (1988:19)
20. Engstrand (2004:167)
21. Merrill (2008:109)
22. Grønnum (2003:121)
23. Basbøll (2005:59, 63)

References

• Basbøll, Hans (2005), The Phonology of Danish, ISBN 0-19-824268-9
• Carbonell, Joan F.; Llisterri, Joaquim (1992), "Catalan", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 22 (1–2): 53–56, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004618
• Cotton, Eleanor Greet; Sharp, John (1988), Spanish in the Americas, Georgetown University Press, ISBN 978-0-87840-094-2
• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 25 (2): 90–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005223
• Engstrand, Olle (2004), Fonetikens grunder (in Swedish), Lund: Studenlitteratur, ISBN 91-44-04238-8
• Grønnum, Nina (2003), "Why are the Danes so hard to understand?", in Jacobsen, Henrik Galberg; Bleses, Dorthe; Madsen, Thomas O.; Thomsen, Pia (eds.), Take Danish - for instance: linguistic studies in honour of Hans Basbøll, presented on the occasion of his 60th birthday, Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, pp. 119–130
• Hualde, José Ignacio (1991), Basque phonology, New York: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-05655-7
• Maddieson, Ian; Spajić, Siniša; Sands, Bonny; Ladefoged, Peter (1993), "Phonetic structures of Dahalo", in Maddieson, Ian (ed.), UCLA working papers in phonetics: Fieldwork studies of targeted languages, 84, Los Angeles: The UCLA Phonetics Laboratory Group, pp. 25–65
• Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Illustrations of the IPA: Castilian Spanish" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (2): 255–259, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373
• Mateus, Maria Helena; d'Andrade, Ernesto (2000), The Phonology of Portuguese, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-823581-X
• Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 38 (1): 107–114, doi:10.1017/S0025100308003344
• Olson, Kenneth; Mielke, Jeff; Sanicas-Daguman, Josephine; Pebley, Carol Jean; Paterson, Hugh J., III (2010), "The phonetic status of the (inter)dental approximant", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 40 (2): 199–215, doi:10.1017/S0025100309990296
• Pop, Sever (1938), Micul Atlas Linguistic Român, Muzeul Limbii Române Cluj
• Quilis, Antonio (1981), Fonética acústica de la lengua española, Gredos, ISBN 9788424901318
• Thelwall, Robin; Sa'Adeddin, M. Akram (1990), "Arabic", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 20 (2): 37–41, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004266
• Vanvik, Arne (1979), Norsk fonetikk, Oslo: Universitetet i Oslo, ISBN 82-990584-0-6
• Watkins, Justin W. (2001), "Illustrations of the IPA: Burmese" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 31 (2): 291–295, doi:10.1017/S0025100301002122

External links

• List of languages with [ð] on PHOIBLE