Voiced alveolar fricative

A voiced alveolar sibilant is common across European languages, but is relatively uncommon cross-linguistically compared to its voiceless variant. Only about 28% of the world's languages contain a voiced dental or alveolar sibilant. Moreover, 85% of the languages with some form of are languages of Europe, Africa, or Western Asia. Features • There are at least three specific variants of : • Dentalized laminal alveolar (commonly called "dental"), which means it is articulated with the tongue blade very close to the upper front teeth, with the tongue tip resting behind lower front teeth. The hissing effect in this variety of is very strong. • Non-retracted alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal. According to about half of English speakers use a non-retracted apical articulation. • Retracted alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue slightly behind the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal. Acoustically, it is close to or laminal . Occurrence Dentalized laminal alveolar Alveolar Retracted alveolar Variable ==Voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative==

A voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative (also known as a slit fricative) is a consonantal sound in some spoken languages. As the International Phonetic Alphabet does not have separate symbols for non-sibilant alveolar fricatives, this sound can be transcribed by use of diacritics, such as (a retracted ) or (a raised , also often part of the affricate ). Additional symbols include (with the alveolar diacritic, in extIPA) and (a lowered ). Features However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant. Occurrence Voiced alveolar tapped fricative A few languages also have a voiced alveolar tapped fricative, which is simply a very brief alveolar non-sibilant fricative, with the tongue making the gesture for a tapped stop but not making full contact. It can be indicated in the IPA with the lowering diacritic to show that full occlusion does not occur, such as . Flapped fricatives are theoretically possible but are not attested. ==See also==