Voiceless dental fricative | |||
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θ | |||
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IPA number | 130 | ||
Encoding | |||
Entity (decimal) | θ |
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Unicode (hex) | U+03B8 | ||
X-SAMPA | T |
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Kirshenbaum | T |
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Sound | |||
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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 thing. Though rather rare as a phoneme in the world's inventory of languages, it is encountered in some of the most widespread and influential (see below). The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨θ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is T. The IPA symbol is the Greek letter theta, which is used for this sound in Greek, and the sound is thus often referred to as "theta".
The dental fricatives are often called "interdental" because they are often produced with the tongue between the upper and lower teeth, and not just against the back of the upper teeth, as they are with other dental consonants.
Among the more than 60 languages with over 10 million speakers, only English, Standard Arabic, Castilian Spanish (i.e., as spoken in Spain only), Burmese, and Greek have the voiceless dental fricative. Speakers of languages and dialects without the sound sometimes have difficulty producing or distinguishing it from similar sounds, especially if they have had no chance to acquire it in childhood, and typically replace it with a voiceless alveolar fricative, voiceless dental plosive, or a voiceless labiodental fricative (known respectively as th-alveolarization,[1] th-stopping,[2] and th-fronting.[3])
The sound is known to have disappeared from a number of languages, e.g. from most of the Germanic languages or dialects, where it is retained only in English and Icelandic.
Contents |
Features of the voiceless dental fricative:
Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
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Albanian | thotë | [θɔtə] | 'to say' | ||
Arabic | Standard[4] | ثابت | [ˈθaːbit] | 'firm' | See Arabic phonology. Represented by <ث>. |
Amami | [θeda] | 'sun' | |||
Arapaho | [jɔːθɔn] | 'bee' | |||
Bashkir | үҫал | [uθaɫ] | 'angry' | ||
Berber | Kabyle | faṯ | [faθ] | 'to cut' | |
Berta | [θɪ́ŋɑ̀] | 'to eat' | |||
Burmese | ?/thuuu | [θòʊ̃] | 'three' | ||
Cornish | eth | [ɛθ] | 'eight' | ||
Emiliano-Romagnolo | faza | [ˈfaːθɐ] | 'face' | ||
English | thin | [θɪn] | 'thin' | See English phonology | |
Galician | cero | [θeɾo] | 'zero' | ||
Greek | θάλασσα/thálassa | [ˈθalasa] | 'sea' | See Modern Greek phonology | |
Gweno | [riθo] | 'eye' | |||
Gwich’in | thał | [θaɬ] | 'pants' | ||
Hän | nihthän | [nihθɑn] | 'I want' | ||
Harsusi | [θəroː] | 'two' | |||
Hlai | Basadung | [θsio] | 'one' | ||
Karen | Sgaw | [θø˧] | 'three' | ||
Karuk | [jiθa] | 'one' | |||
Kickapoo | [nɛθwi] | 'three' | |||
Kwama | [mɑ̄ˈθíl] | 'to laugh' | |||
Leonese | ceru | [θeɾu] | 'zero' | ||
Lorediakarkar | [θar] | 'four' | |||
Massa | [faθ] | 'five' | |||
Saanich | TÁŦES | [teθʔəs] | 'eight' | ||
Sardinian | Nuorese | petha | [pɛθa] | 'meat' | |
Shark Bay | [θar] | 'four' | |||
Shawnee | nthwi | [nθwɪ] | 'three' | ||
Sioux | Nakota | ? | [ktũˈθa] | 'four' | |
Spanish | Castilian[5] | cazar | [kaˈθar] | 'to hunt' | See Spanish phonology and ceceo |
Swahili | thamini | [θɑmini] | 'value' | ||
Syriac | Western Neo-Aramaic | ܬܠܬܐ | [θloːθa] | 'three' | |
Tanacross | thiit | [θiːtʰ] | 'embers' | ||
Toda | [wɨnboθ] | 'nine' | |||
Turkmen | sekiz | [θekið] | 'eight' | ||
Tutchone | Northern | tho | [θo] | 'pants' | |
Southern | thü | [θɨ] | |||
Upland Yuman | Havasupai | [θerap] | 'five' | ||
Hualapai | [θarap] | ||||
Yavapai | [θerapi] | ||||
Welayta | [ɕiθθa] | 'flower' | |||
Welsh | saith | [saiθ] | 'seven' |
Voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative | |
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θ̠ | |
ɹ̝̊ |
The voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative (also known as "slit" fricatives) is a consonantal sound. As the International Phonetic Alphabet does not have separate symbols for the alveolar consonants (the same symbol is used for all coronal places of articulation that aren't palatalized), this sound is usually represented by <θ̠>, <θ͇> (retracted or alveolarized θ, respectively), or <ɹ̝̊> (constricted voiceless ɹ).
Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
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English | Scouse[6] | attain | [əˈθ̠eɪn] | 'attain' | Allophone of /t/ See English phonology |
Hiberno-English[7] | Italy | [ˈɪθ̠ɪli] | 'Italy' | ||
Icelandic | þakið | [θ̠akið̠] | 'roof' | See Icelandic phonology |