Dental consonant

Places of articulation

Dental consonant

Retroflex consonant

Dorsal consonant

Dentals are consonants articulated with either the lower or the upper teeth, or both.

The alveolar consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPA Symbol	Name	Example		Meaning
t̪	Voiceless dental plosive	Spanish	[t̪oɾo]	toro (="bull")
d̪	Voiced dental plosive	Spanish	[d̪ɔn̪d̪e]	dónde (="where")
n̪	Dental nasal	Spanish	[ɔn̪d̪a]	onda (="wave")
ɾ̪	Dental flap
r̪	Dental trill	Marshallese	[e.bɑ.r̪on̪]	Ebadon
θ	Voiceless dental fricative	English	[bæθ]	bath
ð	Voiced dental fricative	English	[ðæt]	that
ð̞	Voiced dental approximant	Spanish	[koð̞o]	codo (="elbow")
l̪	Dental lateral approximant

Examples:

English th in this (SAMPA [D]), or English th in thing (SAMPA [T]) are dental fricatives.

In French, Italian, and Spanish t, d, n, and l are all dental, whereas they're alveolar in English.

See also