| Ipa Symbol: | ð |
| Ipa Number: | 131 |
| Decimal: | 240 |
| Imagefile: | IPA Unicode 0x00F0.svg |
| X-Sampa: | D |
| Kirshenbaum: | D |
| Braille: | 12456 |
| Above: | Voiced dental approximant |
| Ipa Symbol: | ð̞ |
| Ipa Symbol2: | ɹ̪ |
| Showbelow: | no |
| Imagefile: | IPA Unicode 0x00F0+0x031E.svg |
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 pronounced as /⟨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.
The letter (IPA|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, but the approximant is more clearly written with the lowering diacritic: (IPA|ð̞). Very rarely used variant transcriptions of the dental approximant include (IPA|ʋ̠) (retracted pronounced as /link/), (IPA|ɹ̟) (advanced pronounced as /link/) and (IPA|ɹ̪) (pronounced as /link/). It has been proposed that either a turned ⟨
pronounced as /ð/⟩[1] or reversed ⟨pronounced as /ð/⟩[2] be used as a dedicated symbol for the dental approximant, but despite occasional usage, this has not gained general acceptance.The fricative and its unvoiced counterpart are rare phonemes. Almost all languages of Europe and Asia, such as German, 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 pronounced as /[z]/, a voiced dental stop or voiced alveolar stop pronounced as /[d]/, or a voiced labiodental fricative pronounced as /[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 such as Greek 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 Modern Standard Arabic, albeit not by all speakers of modern Arabic dialects, and in some dialects of Hebrew and Assyrian.
Features of the voiced dental non-sibilant fricative:
It does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.
In the following transcriptions, the undertack diacritic may be used to indicate an approximant pronounced as /[ð̞]/.
| Language | Word | Meaning | Notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Albanian: [[Albanian alphabet|i'''dh'''ull]]|italic=yes | pronounced as /[iðuɫ]/ | 'idol' | ||||
| Aleut[3] | Aleut: '''d'''amo | pronounced as /[ðɑmo]/ | 'house' | |||
| Arabic: [[Arabic alphabet|ذهب]]|rtl=yes | pronounced as /[ˈðæhæb]/ | 'gold' | See Arabic phonology. Represented by the letter ḏāl. | |||
| Gulf | ||||||
| Tunisian | See Tunisian Arabic phonology | |||||
| Genèva | pronounced as /[ðə'nɛːva]/ | 'Geneva' | Generally represents the "j" and "ge/gi" phonemes in standard spelling. | |||
| vachiére | pronounced as /[va'θiðə]/ | 'woman cow herder' | Bressan dialect, like the Geneva and many Savoy ones, express "j" and "ge/gi" (in standard Arpitan spelling) as voiced dental fricatives. In addition, however, its dialects often express the intervocalic "r" as such as well. | |||
| Aromanian; Arumanian; Macedo-Romanian: [[Aromanian alphabet|'''z'''ală]] | pronounced as /[ˈðalə]/ | 'butter whey' | Corresponds to pronounced as /link/ in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology | |||
| Assyrian | ܘܪܕܐ werda | pronounced as /[wεrð̞a]/] | 'flower' | Common in the Tyari, Barwari, and Western dialects. Corresponds to pronounced as /link/ in other varieties. | ||
| Some dialects | Asturian; Bable; Leonese; Asturleonese: fa'''z'''er | pronounced as /[fäˈðeɾ]/ | 'to do' | Alternative realization of etymological (z). Can also be realized as pronounced as /link/. | ||
| Bashkir: [[:wikt:ҡаҙ|ҡа'''ҙ''']] / Bashkir: qa'''ð''' | 'goose' | |||||
| Basque: [[Basque alphabet|a'''d'''ar]]|italic=yes | pronounced as /[að̞ar]/ | 'horn' | Allophone of pronounced as //d// | |||
| pronounced as /[fɛ̀ːðɑ̀nɑ́]/ | 'to sweep' | |||||
| Bambara: [[Burmese alphabet|အညာ'''သား''']] | pronounced as /[ʔəɲàd̪͡ðá]/ | 'inlander' | Commonly realized as an affricate pronounced as /link/. | |||
| Catalan; Valencian: [[Catalan orthography|ca'''d'''a]]|italic=yes | pronounced as /[ˈkaðə]/ | 'each' | Fricative or approximant. Allophone of pronounced as //d//. See Catalan phonology | |||
| Woods Cree (th-dialect) | ni'''th'''a | pronounced as /[niða]/ | 'I' | Reflex of Proto-Algonguian *r. Shares features of a sonorant. | ||
| Weak fricative or approximant. It is a common intervocalic allophone of pronounced as //d̪//, and may be simply a plosive pronounced as /link/ instead. | ||||||
| bai'''ð'''a | pronounced as /[ˈbaɪða]/ | 'wait' | ||||
| Emilian | Bolognese | żänt | pronounced as /[ðæ̃:t]/ | 'people' | ||
| English | Received Pronunciation | this | pronounced as /[ðɪs]/ | 'this' | ||
| Western American English | Interdental. | |||||
| Extremaduran | ḥa'''z'''el | pronounced as /[häðel]/ | 'to do' | Realization of etymological 'z'. Can also be realized as pronounced as /[θ]/ | ||
| Fijian: '''c'''iwa|italic=yes | pronounced as /[ðiwa]/ | 'nine' | ||||
| Galician | Some dialects[4] | Galician: fa'''z'''er | pronounced as /[fɐˈðeɾ]/ | 'to do' | Alternative realization of etymological (z). Can also be realized as pronounced as /[θ, z, z̺]/. | |
| Austrian[5] | German: [[German orthography|lei'''d'''er]]|italic=yes | pronounced as /[ˈlaɛ̯ða]/ | 'unfortunately' | Intervocalic allophone of pronounced as //d// in casual speech. See Standard German phonology | ||
| Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Greek alphabet|'''δ'''άφνη]] / | pronounced as /[ˈðafni]/ | 'laurel' | See Modern Greek phonology | |||
| Gwich'in: nii'''dh'''àn | pronounced as /[niːðân]/ | 'you want' | ||||
| ë̀'''dh'''ä̀ | pronounced as /[ə̂ðɑ̂]/ | 'hide' | ||||
| pronounced as /[ðebeːr]/ | 'bee' | |||||
| Iraqi | Hebrew: [[Hebrew alphabet|א'''ד'''וני]]|rtl=yes | 'my lord' | Commonly pronounced pronounced as /link/. See Modern Hebrew phonology | |||
| Hebrew: [[Hebrew alphabet|גָּ'''ד'''וֹל]]|rtl=yes/ğaḏol | pronounced as /[dʒaðol]/ | 'large, great' | See Yemenite Hebrew | |||
| Many dialects | Ladino: [[Hebrew alphabet|קריאדֿור]]|rtl=yes / Ladino: [[Judaeo-Spanish#Aki Yerushalayim orthography|kria'''d'''or]] | pronounced as /[kɾiaˈðor]/ | 'creator' | Intervocalic allophone of pronounced as //d// in many dialects. | ||
| Kabyle: [[Berber Latin alphabet|'''ḏ'''uḇ]] | pronounced as /[ðuβ]/ | 'to be exhausted' | ||||
| ka'''l'''ag|italic=yes | pronounced as /[kað̞aɡ]/ | 'spirit' | ||||
| An approximant; postvocalic allophone of pronounced as //d//. See Kurdish phonology. | ||||||
| Malay | Malaysian | azan | [a.ðan] | 'azan' | Only in Arabic loanwords; usually replaced with /z/. See Malay phonology | |
| Malayalam | 'അത്' | [aðɨ̆] | 'That' | Colloquial usage. | ||
| [[Cyrillic alphabet|шо'''д'''о]] | pronounced as /[ʃoðo]/ | 'lung' | ||||
| mé'''th'''e | pronounced as /[mɛð]/ | 'mother' | Predominantly found in western Jèrriais dialects; otherwise realised as [ɾ], and sometimes as [l] or [z]. | |||
| Northern Sami: [[Northern Sámi orthography|die'''đ'''a]]|italic=yes | pronounced as /[d̥ieðɑ]/ | 'science' | ||||
| Norwegian: [[Norwegian alphabet|'''i''']]|italic=yes | pronounced as /[ð̩ʲ˕ː]/ | 'in' | Syllabic palatalized frictionless approximant corresponding to pronounced as //iː// in other dialects. See Norwegian phonology | |||
| Occitan (post 1500);: que '''d'''ivi | pronounced as /[ke ˈð̞iwi]/ | 'what I should' | Allophone of pronounced as //d//. See Occitan phonology | |||
| Portuguese: [[Portuguese orthography|na'''d'''a]]|italic=yes | pronounced as /[ˈn̪äðɐ]/ | 'nothing' | Northern and central dialects. Allophone of pronounced as //d//, mainly after an oral vowel. See Portuguese phonology | |||
| Sardinian: [[Sardinian language|ni'''d'''u]]|italic=yes | 'nest' | Allophone of pronounced as //d// | ||||
| Gaelic; Scottish Gaelic: [[Scottish Gaelic|Mà'''ir'''i]]|italic=yes | pronounced as /[ˈmaːðɪ]/ | 'Mary' | Hebridean realisation of /ɾʲ/, particularly common in Lewis and South Uist; otherwise realized as [ɾʲ][6] or as [r̝] in southern Barra and Vatersay. | |||
| zapta | pronounced as /[ˈðaptã]/ | 'five' | Sometimes with pronounced as /[z]/ | |||
| Most dialects | Spanish; Castilian: [[Spanish orthography|de'''d'''o]]|italic=yes | pronounced as /[ˈd̪e̞ð̞o̞]/ | 'finger' | Ranges from close fricative to approximant.[7] Allophone of pronounced as //d//. See Spanish phonology | ||
| Swahili: [[Latin script|'''dh'''ambi]] | pronounced as /[ðɑmbi]/ | 'sin' | Mostly occurs in Arabic loanwords originally containing this sound. | |||
| Central Standard | Swedish: [[Swedish alphabet|ba'''d'''a]]|italic=yes | pronounced as /[ˈbɑːð̞ä]/ | 'to take a bath' | An approximant; allophone of pronounced as //d// in casual speech. See Swedish phonology | ||
| Some dialects | Swedish: [[Swedish alphabet|'''i''']]|italic=yes | pronounced as /[ð̩ʲ˕ː]/ | 'in' | A syllabic palatalized frictionless approximant corresponding to pronounced as //iː// in Central Standard Swedish. See Swedish phonology | ||
| rtl=yes|[[Syriac abjad|ܐܚܕ]] | pronounced as /[aħːeð]/ | 'to take' | ||||
| Tamil: [[Tamil script|ஒன்பது]] | pronounced as /[wʌnbʌðɯ]/ | 'nine' | See Tamil phonology | |||
| '''dh'''et | pronounced as /[ðet]/ | 'liver' | ||||
| e'''dh'''ó|italic=yes | pronounced as /[eðǒ]/ | 'hide' | ||||
| a'''dh'''ǜ|italic=yes | pronounced as /[aðɨ̂]/ | |||||
| [[Venetian language|me'''z'''orno]]|italic=yes | pronounced as /[meˈðorno]/ | 'midday' | ||||
| Welsh: [[Welsh alphabet|bar'''dd''']]|italic=yes | pronounced as /[barð]/ | 'bard' | See Welsh phonology | |||
| Tilquiapan | Allophone of pronounced as //d// | |||||
Danish pronounced as /[ð]/ is actually a velarized alveolar approximant.
pronounced as /navigation/