Re: Dental Fricatives

From: "Peter Bleackley" <Peter.Bleackley@...>

| As a small child, I used to mispronounce [T] and [D] as [f] and [v]
| respectively. This pronunciation is common in some dialects of English,
| notably Cockney. However, speakers of languages where the dental fricatives
| are absent tend to render them as [s] and [z] when attempting to pronounce
| English words. People who lisp and Spaniards make the opposite change. Why
| the difference? To my ears, dental fricatives sound more like [f] and [v]
| than they do [s] and [z].

I had to have voice therapy to quit pronouncing labiodentals for interdentals.
Russian commonly borrows Greek words with "th" but realizes them as "f", so you
get words like "orfodoksyj" and names like Fyodor.

Also, if you compare certain Semitic languages:

Arabic /T/ = Hebrew /S/ = Aramaic /t/
Arabic /D/ = Hebrew /z/ = Aramaic /d/
Arabic /D~/ = Hebrew /s~/ = Aramaic /t~/ (emphatics)
Biblical Hebrew [T] (lenited /t/) = Sephardic [t], Ashkenazic [s]
Biblical Hebrew [D] (lenited /d/) = Sephardic and Ashkenazic [d]

~Danny~ (Dhanny or Zanny when lenited)

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