The voiced alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a sibilant or non-sibilant fricative is being described.

Voiced alveolar sibilant

The voiced alveolar sibilant is common across European languages, but is relatively uncommon cross-linguistically compared to the 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

Occurrence

Dentalized laminal alveolar

Non-retracted alveolar

Retracted alveolar

Variable

Voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative

The **voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative ** is a consonantal sound. As the International Phonetic Alphabet does not have separate symbols for the alveolar consonants (the same symbol is used for all coronal places of articulation that are not palatalized), it can represent the sound as in a number of ways including ⟨ð̠⟩ or ⟨ð͇⟩ (retracted or alveolarized, respectively), ⟨ɹ̝⟩ (constricted ), or ⟨d̞⟩ (lowered ). Few languages also have the voiced alveolar tapped fricative, which is simply a very brief apical 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. Flapped fricatives are theoretically possible but are not attested.

Features

However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.

Occurrence

Voiced lateral-median fricative

The voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative (also known as a "lisp" fricative) is a consonantal sound. Consonants is pronounced with simultaneous lateral and central airflow.

Features

However, it does not have the grooved tongue and directed airflow, or the high frequencies, of a sibilant.

Occurrence