Voiced alveolar fricative

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.

The symbol for an alveolar sibilant is. The IPA letter is not normally used for dental or postalveolar sibilants in narrow transcription unless modified by a diacritic.
The IPA symbol for an alveolar non-sibilant fricative is derived by means of diacritics; it can be or.

Voiced alveolar sibilant

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, 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.

Voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative

A voiced alveolar non-sibilant 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 or . Additional symbols include and .

Features

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

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.