# 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.
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. However, the approximant can be explicitly indicated with the lowering diacritic: ⟨ð̞⟩. Very rarely used variant transcriptions of the dental approximant include ⟨ʋ̠⟩ (retracted [ʋ]), ⟨ɹ̟⟩ (advanced [ɹ]) and ⟨ɹ̪⟩ (dentalised [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.
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 [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 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

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.
* Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

## Occurrence

In the following transcriptions, the undertack diacritic may be used to indicate an approximant [ð̞].
| Language | Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes |
| Albanian | Albanian | idhull | [iðuɫ] | 'idol' | |
| Aleut | Aleut | damo | [ðɑmo] | 'house' | |
| Arabic | Modern Standard | ذهب | [ˈðæhæb] | 'gold' | See Arabic phonology. Represented by the letter ḏāl. |
| Arabic | Gulf | ذهب | [ˈðæhæb] | 'gold' | |
| Arabic | Najdi | ذهب | [ˈðæhæb] | 'gold' | |
| Arabic | Tunisian | | [ˈðhæb] | 'gold' | See Tunisian Arabic phonology |
| Arpitan | Genevan [fr] and Savoyard | Genèva | [ðə'nɛːva] | 'Geneva' | Generally represents the "j" and "ge/gi" phonemes in standard spelling. |
| Arpitan | Bressan | vachiére | [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 | Aromanian | zală | [ˈðalə] | 'butter whey' | Corresponds to [z] in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology |
| Assyrian | Assyrian | ܘܪܕܐ werda | [wεrð̞a] | 'flower' | Common in the Tyari, Barwari, and Western 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 | Bashkir | ҡаҙ / qađ | | 'goose' | |
| Basque | Basque | adar | [að̞ar] | 'horn' | Allophone of /d/ |
| Berta | Berta | [fɛ̀ːðɑ̀nɑ́] | [fɛ̀ːðɑ̀nɑ́] | 'to sweep' | |
| Burmese | Burmese | အညာသား | [ʔəɲàd̪͡ðá] | 'inlander' | Commonly realized as an affricate [d̪͡ð]. |
| Catalan | Catalan | cada | [ˈkaðə] | 'each' | 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 | Dahalo | | | | Weak fricative or approximant. It is a common intervocalic allophone of /d̪/, and may be simply a plosive [d̪] instead. |
| Elfdalian | Elfdalian | baiða | [ˈbaɪða] | 'wait' | |
| Emilian | Bolognese | żänt | [ðæ̃:t] | 'people' | |
| English | Received Pronunciation | this | [ðɪs] | 'this' | |
| English | Western American English | this | | 'this' | Interdental. |
| Extremaduran | Extremaduran | ḥazel | [häðel] | 'to do' | Realization of etymological 'z'. Can also be realized as [θ] |
| Fijian | Fijian | ciwa | [ðiwa] | 'nine' | |
| Galician | Some dialects | fazer | [fɐˈðeɾ] | 'to do' | Alternative realization of etymological ⟨z⟩. Can also be realized as [θ, z, z̺]. |
| German | Austrian | leider | [ˈlaɛ̯ða] | 'unfortunately' | Intervocalic allophone of /d/ in casual speech. See Standard German phonology |
| Greek | Greek | δάφνη / dáfni | [ˈðafni] | 'laurel' | See Modern Greek phonology |
| Gwich'in | Gwich'in | niidhàn | [niːðân] | 'you want' | |
| Hän | Hän | ë̀dhä̀ | [ə̂ðɑ̂] | 'hide' | |
| Harsusi | Harsusi | [ðebeːr] | [ðebeːr] | 'bee' | |
| Hebrew | Iraqi | אדוני | | 'my lord' | Commonly pronounced [d]. See Modern Hebrew phonology |
| Hebrew | Temani | גָּדוֹל/ğaḏol | [dʒaðol] | 'large, great' | See Yemenite Hebrew |
| Judeo-Spanish | Many dialects | קריאדֿור / kriador | [kɾiaˈðor] | 'creator' | Intervocalic allophone of /d/ in many dialects. |
| Kabyle | Kabyle | ḏuḇ | [ðuβ] | 'to be exhausted' | |
| Kagayanen | Kagayanen | kalag | [kað̞aɡ] | 'spirit' | |
| Kurdish | Kurdish | | | | An approximant; postvocalic allophone of /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. |
| Mari | Eastern dialect | шодо | [ʃoðo] | 'lung' | |
| Norman | Jèrriais | méthe | [mɛð] | 'mother' | Predominantly found in western Jèrriais dialects; otherwise realised as [ɾ], and sometimes as [l] or [z]. |
| Northern Sámi | Northern Sámi | dieđa | [d̥ieðɑ] | 'science' | |
| Norwegian | Meldal dialect | i | [ð̩ʲ˕ː] | 'in' | Syllabic palatalized frictionless approximant 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 | nada | [ˈn̪äðɐ] | 'nothing' | Northern and central dialects. Allophone of /d/, mainly after an oral vowel. See Portuguese phonology |
| Sardinian | Sardinian | nidu | | 'nest' | Allophone of /d/ |
| Scottish Gaelic | Many Outer Hebrides dialects | Màiri | [ˈmaːði] | 'Mary' | Often slightly palatalized. Common Hebridean realisation of /ɾʲ/, standard in Lewis and also common in Harris, Benbecula and South Uist; otherwise realized as [ɾʲ], as [ʒ] in southern Barra, or as [j] in Tiree. |
| Sioux | Lakota | zapta | [ˈðaptã] | 'five' | Sometimes with [z] |
| Spanish | Most dialects | dedo | [ˈd̪e̞ð̞o̞] | 'finger' | Ranges from close fricative to approximant. Allophone of /d/. See Spanish phonology |
| Swahili | Swahili | dhambi | [ðɑmbi] | 'sin' | Mostly occurs in Arabic loanwords originally containing this sound. |
| Swedish | Central Standard | bada | [ˈbɑːð̞ä] | 'to take a bath' | An approximant; allophone of /d/ in casual speech. See Swedish phonology |
| Swedish | Some dialects | i | [ð̩ʲ˕ː] | 'in' | A syllabic palatalized frictionless approximant corresponding to /iː/ in Central Standard Swedish. See Swedish phonology |
| Syriac | Western Neo-Aramaic | ܐܚܕ | [aħːeð] | 'to take' | |
| Tamil | Tamil | ஒன்பது | [onbäðɯ] | 'nine' | Intervocalic allophone of /t/. See Tamil phonology |
| Tanacross | Tanacross | dhet | [ðet] | 'liver' | |
| Turkmen | Turkmen | ýyldyz | [jɯldɯð] | 'star' | Realization of the /z/ phoneme |
| Tutchone | Northern | edhó | [eðǒ] | 'hide' | |
| Tutchone | Southern | adhǜ | [aðɨ̂] | 'hide' | |
| Venetian | Venetian | mezorno | [meˈðorno] | 'midday' | |
| Welsh | Welsh | bardd | [barð] | 'bard' | See Welsh phonology |
| Zapotec | Tilquiapan | | | | Allophone of /d/ |
Danish [ð] is actually a velarized alveolar approximant.