dentales

Dentales are a class of consonants articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth. The term is used in phonetics to describe sounds produced at the dental place of articulation, though some descriptions treat certain sounds as interdental when the tongue sits between the teeth. The precise classification can vary by language analysis, but the core idea is articulation with the teeth and tongue rather than the alveolar ridge or lips.

Consonants described as dental can be stops, fricatives, nasals, liquids, or affricates. In IPA notation, dental sounds are often shown with a dental diacritic on other symbols, for example t̪, d̪, n̪, l̪, s̪. Interdental sounds, produced with the tongue between the teeth, are sometimes analyzed as a subgroup or as a separate category; symbols like θ and ð are commonly described as interdental, though some descriptions treat them as dental as well. English provides a well-known example of dental fricatives in many outlines of the “th” sounds, though in practice some speakers realize them with slight interdental or dentalization.

Across languages, dentales can appear as dental stops (a t or d with a tooth contact), dentals for nasals or liquids, and dental fricatives in systems that contrast with alveolar sounds. Spanish, for example, has dental stops such as t̪ and d̪, and some languages have dental or interdental fricatives. The presence and phonological status of dentales vary by language, influencing both pronunciation and orthography.

In summary, dentales refer to consonants articulated with contact against the upper teeth, with various manners of articulation and cross-linguistic variation in how they contrast with other places of articulation.