In linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as /t/, /d/, /n/, and /l/ in some languages. Dentals are primarily distinguished from sounds in which contact is made with the tongue and the gum ridge, as in English (see Alveolar consonant), due to the acoustic similarity of the sounds and the fact that in the Roman alphabet they are generally written using the same symbols (t, d, n, and so on).

Dentals cross-linguistically

Pure or apical dentals occur in many languages. In Albanian, there are two lateral approximants (l sounds): one apical alveolar, and one apical dental. However, the apical dental consonant is articulated with retracted tongue root — that is, it is velarized.

Sanskrit, Hindi and all other Indic languages have an entire set of dental plosives which occur phonemically as voiced and voiceless, and with or without aspiration. The nasal plosive /n/ also exists in these languages, but is quite alveolar and apical in articulation. In these languages these coronal stops are very similar to those found in Spanish (apico-dental), but different than those in French (lamino-alveolar), and quite distinct from those found in English (apico-alveolar). To the Indian speaker, the alveolar /t/ and /d/ of English sound more like the corresponding retroflex consonants of his own language than the dentals.

Spanish and Italian contain a set of dental stops: apico-dental stops occur as allophones of /t/, /d/, and /n/, respectively. It should be noted in the examples that while /t/ and /d/ are commonly realized as apico-dental stops, the Spanish /n/ is generally realized as an apico-alveolar stop (as in English), but assimilates to the apico-dental place of articulation when proceeding such a consonant. The Spanish alveolar lateral /l/ does the same.

Dental consonants in the world's languages

The dental/denti-alveolar consonants as transcribed by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPA	Description	Example
IPA	Description	Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
	dental nasal	Spanish	onda	[on̪d̪a]
	voiceless dental plosive	Spanish	toro	[t̪oɾo]
	voiced dental plosive	Spanish	donde	[d̪on̪d̪e]
	voiceless dental sibilant fricative	Polish	kosa	[kos̪a]
	voiced dental sibilant fricative	Polish	koza	[koz̪a]
	voiceless dental nonsibilant fricative (also often called "interdental")	English	thing	[θɪŋ]
	voiced dental nonsibilant fricative (also often called "interdental")	English	this	[ğɪs]
	dental approximant	Spanish	codo	[koğ̞o]
	dental lateral approximant	Albanian	halla	[haɫ̪a]
	dental flap
	dental trill	Marshallese	Ebadon	[ebɑr̪on̪]	Ebadon
	dental ejective
	voiced dental implosive
	dental click release	Xhosa	ukúcola	[uk’úkǀola]	to

Dental-alveolar confusion in the Romance languages

French, Italian, and Spanish t and d are often called dental for the sake of simplicity. However, in French these sounds are actually alveolar, or perhaps denti-alveolar; the difference between these sounds in French and English is not so much where the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth as which part of the tongue makes the contact. In English it is the tip of the tongue (such sounds are termed apical), whereas in French it is the blade, or area just behind the tip of the tongue (such sounds are called laminal).

The confusion with dental articulation comes from looking at the tongue from outside the mouth: With laminal (denti-)alveolar consonants, the tip of the tongue can be seen touching the teeth. However, it is the rear-most point of contact that is most relevant, for this is what defines the maximum acoustic space of resonance and will give a consonant its characteristic sound. In the case of French, the rear-most contact is alveolar or sometimes slightly pre-alveolar.

This laminal/apical difference is important. If an English speaker trying to speak French simply moves the tongue forward to make the contact dental, while maintaining an apical articulation, any surrounding front rounded vowels may be difficult to pronounce. If, however, the speaker tucks the tip of the tongue out of the way (such as behind the lower teeth), and makes contact on the alveolar ridge (the same place as in English, but here with a different part of the tongue), the consonants will sound have the proper "French" sound, and the vowels will be much easier to pronounce since the tongue body is already raised towards the palate. Thus a sufficient phonetic description of a language must specify both the active ("moving") and passive ("non-moving") articulators in the production of the coronal consonants.

place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is the point of contact, where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an active (moving) articulator (typically some part of the tongue) and a passive (stationary) articulator (typically some part of
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Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips (bilabial articulation) or with the lower lip and the upper teeth (labiodental articulation). English [m]
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In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are:

IPA Description Example
Language Orthography IPA Meaning
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Labial-velar consonants are doubly articulated at the velum and the lips. They are sometimes called "labiovelar consonants", a term which can also refer to labialized velars, such as the approximant [w].
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A labial-alveolar consonant is a consonant produced with two simultaneous places of articulation: At the lips ('labial'; a p, b, or m sound), and at the gums ('alveolar'; a t, d, or n sound).
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In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth. The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPA Description Example
Language Orthography IPA Meaning

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Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical (using the tongue tip), laminal (using the tongue blade), domed (with the tongue bunched up), or sub-apical (with the tongue curled back), as well
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Linguolabials or apicolabials are consonants articulated by placing the tongue tip or blade against the upper lip, which is drawn downward to meet the tongue.
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Bidental consonants, pronounced with both the lower and upper teeth, are normally found only in speech pathology. The Extended IPA symbol is both a superscript and a subscript bridge, [ ̪͆].
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Interdental consonants are produced by placing the blade of the tongue against the upper incisors. This differs from a dental consonant in that the tip of the tongue is placed between
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Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the superior teeth.
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An apical consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue (i.e. the tip of the tongue). This contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue (which is just behind
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A laminal consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, which is the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue.
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Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate (the place
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alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants are palatalized postalveolar fricatives, articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate.
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In phonetics, retroflex consonants are consonant sounds used in some languages. (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in indology.
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Dorsal consonants are articulated with the mid body of the tongue (the dorsum). They contrast with coronal consonants articulated with the flexible front of the tongue, and radical consonants articulated with the root of the tongue.
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Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex.
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In phonetics, the labialised palatal approximant is a consonant with two constrictions in the vocal tract: with the tongue on the palate, and rounded at the lips.
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Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).
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Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the
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A uvular-epiglottal consonant is a doubly articulated consonant pronounced by making a simultaneous uvular consonant and epiglottal consonant. An example is the Somali "uvular" plosive /q/, which is actually a voiceless uvular-epiglottal plosive
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Radical consonants are articulated with the root (base) of the tongue in the throat. They include the pharyngeal and epiglottal places of articulation. Glottal consonants are also sometimes considered radicals, but they are more accurately described as having no place of
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A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx.

Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA):

IPA Description Example (Mishnaic Hebrew)
Orthography IPA Meaning
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An epiglotto-pharyngeal consonant is a newly reported type of consonant, articulated with the epiglottis against the back wall of the pharynx. This contrasts with the pharyngeal consonants, where the root of the tongue contacts the back wall of the pharynx, and prototypical
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An epiglottal consonant is a consonant that is articulated with the aryepiglottic folds (see larynx) against the epiglottis. They are occasionally called aryepiglottal consonants.
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Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider them to be
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Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning 'sound, voice') is the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (phones), and their production, audition and perception, while phonology, which
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International Phonetic Alphabet

Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The International
Phonetic Alphabet
History
Nonstandard symbols
Extended IPA
Naming conventions
IPA for English The
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For the journal, see .

Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. Someone who engages in this study is called a linguist.
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EnglishInfo

Dental consonant

Information about Dental consonant

Dentals cross-linguistically

Dental consonants in the world's languages

Dental-alveolar confusion in the Romance languages

See also

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