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IPA symbols for the phonetic transcription of fricatives
Listen to the fricatives in the videos below
LABIAL •
• LABIAL
Voiceless
Voiced
Voiceless
LINGUO-LABIAL •
Voiced
• LINGUO-LABIAL
Fricative
Fricative
Fricative
Fricative
Voiceless
DENTAL •
Fricative
Voiced
• DENTAL
Fricative
Voiceless
RETROFLEX •
Fricative
Voiced
• RETROFLEX
Fricative
Voiceless
PALATAL •
Fricative
Voiced
• PALATAL
Fricative
Voiceless
UVULAR •
Fricative
Voiced
• UVULAR
Fricative
Voiceless
PHARYNGEAL •
Fricative
Voiced
• PHARYNGEAL
Fricative
Voiced
• GLOTTAL
Fricative
Voiceless
ALVEOLAR LATERAL •
Fricative
Voiced
• ALVEOLAR LATERAL
Fricative
Voiceless
PALATO-ALVEOLAR •
Fricative
Voiced
• PALATO-ALVEOLAR
Fricative
Voiced •
• Voiceless
•
LABIAL
•
LABIO DENTAL
•
ALVEOLAR
•
RETROFLEX
•
VELAR
•
PHARYNGEAL
•
PALATO ALVEOLAR
LINGUO LABIAL
•
DENTAL
•
POST ALVEOLAR
•
PALATAL
•
UVULAR
•
GLOTTAL
•
ALVEOLAR LATERAL
•
Voiceless •
• Voiced
Anchor 1
Anchor 2
Anchor 3
Anchor 4
Anchor 5
Anchor 6
Anchor 7
Anchor 8
Anchor 9
Anchor 10
Anchor 11
Anchor 12
Anchor 13
Anchor 14
Theory
Voiceless
LABIO-DENTAL •
Fricative
Voiced
• ALVEOLAR
Fricative
Voiceless
ALVEOLAR •
Fricative
Voiced
• LABIO - DENTAL
Fricative
Voiceless
POST - ALVEOLAR •
Fricative
Voiced
• POST - ALVEOLAR
Fricative
Voiceless
VELAR •
Fricative
Voiced
• VELAR
Fricative
Voiceless
GLOTTAL •
Fricative
Nutshell phonetics of fricatives
Fricatives are speech sounds which are pronounced with a stricture of close approximation. This means that the active articulator (e.g. tongue) approaches the passive articulator (e.g. the alveolar ridge) so closely that only a very narrow gap remains for the airstream to escape. Forcing the air through this narrow gap creates a hissing sound quality which is characteristic for these sounds: perceptually the hiss is most outspoken in the voiceless fricatives. The articulation of fricatives is visually illustrated in the animations towards the bottom of this page.
For the phonetic transcription of fricatives, the phonetic notation system of the International Phonetic Association has 22 discrete phonetic symbols for fricatives at 11 places of articulation representing the whole range from labial (anterior) to glottal (posterior).
In a practical phonetics perspective, most characteristic for the fricatives is their hissing sound quality. The alveolar and post-alveolar fricatives have the strongest hiss, while it is substantially weaker at the other places of articulation.
The voiceless alveolar fricative occurs most frequently in languages of the world. Voiceless fricatives are far more common than voiced fricatives: 92% of the languages have voiceless fricatives, only 51% have voiced fricatives. The relative frequency of the 8 most frequent fricatives is as follows:
Some fricatives have a lateral release of the air. In these fricatives, the tip of the tongue is placed on e.g. the alveolar ridge and the tongue is spread fairly widely so that there is a small gap between the side of the tongue and the cheek. This allows the air to escape sideways. Lateral fricatives occur in 11% of the world's languages. In Zulu, for instance, there is a contrast between a voiced and a voiceless lateral fricative as illustrated by the following mimimal pair: dlala (to play) vs. hlala (to live).
It should also be mentioned that about 8% of the languages of the world have no fricatives. The absence of fricatives seems to be particularly characteristic for Australian Aboriginal languages where the vast majority of languages have none. The absence of fricatives in these languages has been hypothesized to relate to the widespread incidence of mild to moderate hearing loss in speakers of these languages resulting from chronic Otitis Media. It is estimated that the Aboriginal population spend 32 months with ear infections between the ages of 2 and 20 years, whereas this figure is only 3 months in the non-Aboriginal population. It is hypothesised that these languages have avoided fricatives because they are very difficult to distinguish by people with hearing impairment (Butcher, 2018).
The language with the largest number of fricatives may well have been Ubykh (an extinct Caucasian language) : this language reportedly had a total of 32 fricatives.
References
Butcher, A. (2019). The special nature of Australian phonologies: Why auditory constraints on human language sound systems are not universal. Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, 35, pp. 1-16.
Visual illustration of a few fricative articulations
Voiceless fricatives
The vocal folds do not vibrate
Voiceless
LABIO-DENTAL •
Fricative
Voiceless
ALVEOLAR •
Fricative
Voiceless
POST - ALVEOLAR •
Fricative
Voiceless
VELAR •
Fricative
Voiceless
GLOTTAL •
Fricative
Voiced fricatives
The vocal folds do vibrate
Voiced
• LABIO - DENTAL
Fricative
Voiced
• ALVEOLAR
Fricative
Voiced
• POST - ALVEOLAR
Fricative
Voiced
• VELAR
Fricative
Animations
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