A voiceless labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in a number of spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the "f" sound in "face". The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .

Features Features of a voiceless labiodental fricative:

Occurrence Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Abkhaz /fy 'lightning' See Abkhaz phonology Adyghe /tfy 'five' Corresponds to in Kabardian and Proto-Circassian Albanian 'cheek' Arabic Modern Standard /th'arf 'envelope' See Arabic phonology Armenian Eastern /futbol 'football' Assyrian ܦܬܐ pata 'face' Used mostly by Western speakers; corresponds to in most other dialects. Assamese /borof 'snow/ice' Azeri tüfəng 'ɡun' Basque 'thin' Bengali 'fan' Only occurs in loanwords. See Bengali phonology Catalan 'strong' See Catalan phonology Chechen / 'fax' Used only in loanwords. There is no /f/ in Chechen; /f/ was replaced by /p/ in loanwords that contained it before increased influence from the Russian language popularized the usage of /f/. Chinese Cantonese / 'to fly' See Cantonese phonology Mandarin (traditional) / 飞(simplified) / See Mandarin phonology Coptic /ftoow 'four' Czech 'to blow' See Czech phonology Dutch 'bike' See Dutch phonology English All dialects fill 'fill' See English phonology Cockney think 'think' Socially marked, with speakers exhibiting some free variation with (with which it corresponds to in other dialects). See th-fronting. Many British urban dialectsSome younger East Anglian EnglishSome younger New Zealanders Broad South African myth[mɨf]'myth'Possible realization of /θ/, more common word-finally. See White SAE phonology. Esperanto 'fire' See Esperanto phonology Ewe 'he spit off' French 'fabulous' See French phonology Galician 'spark' See Galician phonology German 'bland' See Standard German phonology Goemai f'at' [fat] 'to blow' Greek 'nature' See Modern Greek phonology Gujarati / 'fruit' See Gujarati phonology Hebrew /sofer 'writer' See Modern Hebrew phonology Hindustani / /saaf 'clean' See Hindustani phonology Hmong / 'to sue, to indict' Hungarian 'he/she pays attention' See Hungarian phonology Indonesian 'characteristic' Italian 'ghost' See Italian phonology Kabardian /fyz 'woman' Corresponds to [ʂʷ] in Adyghe and Proto-Circassian Kabyle Kazakh faqır / фақыр 'poor' Khmer / 'coffee' See Khmer phonology Macedonian /fonetika 'phonetics' See Macedonian phonology Māori 'genealogy' Less commonly . See Māori phonology. Malay 'ferry' Only occurs in loanwords Malayalam /falam 'fruit, result' Only occurs in loanwords in the standard version. ഫ is used to represent both /pʰ/ and /f/ but nowadays most people pronounce /pʰ/ as [f]. Occurs in native words in the Jeseri dialect. See Malayalam phonology Maltese 'rabbit' Norwegian 'filter' See Norwegian phonology Persian /foruxt 'he/she sold' See Persian phonology Polish 'fur' See Polish phonology Portuguese 'speech' See Portuguese phonology Punjabi ਫ਼ੌਜੀ/faujī 'soldier' RomanianDEX Online : 'fire' See Romanian phonology Russian /orfografiya 'orthography' Contrasts with palatalized form. See Russian phonology Scottish Gaelic 'near, close' Loosely articulated, can resemble . See Scottish Gaelic phonology Serbo-Croatian / 'phase' See Serbo-Croatian phonology Slovak 'to blow' See Slovak phonologySloveneStandard'flute'See Slovene phonologySome dialects'all (people)'Allophone of before voiceless obstruents in dialects with → development. See Slovene phonology Somali 'wart' See Somali phonology Spanish 'ghost' See Spanish phonology Swahili 'to die' Swedish 'fish' See Swedish phonology Thai /fon 'rain' Toda nes̲of 'moon' Turkish 'pure' See Turkish phonology Ukrainian /fastiv 'Fastiv' See Ukrainian phonology Vietnamese 'firecracker' See Vietnamese phonology Welsh 'stick' See Welsh phonology West Frisian 'full' See West Frisian phonology Yi / 'roast' Zapotec Tilquiapan cafe 'coffee' Used primarily in loanwords from Spanish

Voiceless labiodental approximant

A voiceless labiodental approximant is a similar sound but with less turbulent airflow. It is transcribed in IPA as .

Language Word IPA Meaning NotesEnglishIndian South Africanfair'fair'Described as an approximant. Corresponds to in other accents.

Voiceless dentolabial fricative

A voiceless dentolabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some dialects of Greenlandic.

Whereas a typical voiceless labiodental fricative is articulated with the upper teeth contacting the lower lip, a voiceless dentolabial fricative is articulated in the inverse direction, with the lower teeth contacting the upper lip. While the IPA has no symbol to transcribe this distinction, the extIPA uses the diacritic (the above variant of the traditional IPA symbol for dentalization ) to indicate dentolabial articulation in the context of labial consonants. This sound can therefore be transcribed with the symbol , as is used in the context of this article.

Features The features of a voiceless dentolabial fricative are:

Its place of articulation is dentolabial, which means it is articulated with the upper lip and the lower teeth.

Occurrence Language Word IPA Meaning Notes GreenlandicQassimiut 'there it is' and geminate are pronounced as dento-labial in some southern dialects. See Greenlandic phonology.

See also List of phonetics topics

Notes

References

External links