voiceless alveolar fricative

A voiceless alveolar fricative is a type of fricative consonant pronounced with the tip or blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (gum line) just behind the teeth. This refers to a class of sounds, not a single sound. There are at least six types with significant perceptual differences:

• The voiceless alveolar sibilant  has a strong hissing sound, as the s in English sin. It is one of the most common sounds in the world.
• The voiceless denti-alveolar sibilant  (an ad hoc notation), also called apico-dental, has a weaker lisping sound like English th in thin. It occurs in Spanish dialects in southern Spain (eastern Andalusia).
• The voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant , also called apico-alveolar or grave, has a weak hushing sound reminiscent of fricatives. It is used in the languages of northern Iberia, like Astur-Leonese, Basque, Castilian Spanish (excluding parts of Andalusia), Catalan, Galician and Northern Portuguese. A similar retracted sibilant form is also used in Dutch, Icelandic, Swedish, Finnish and Greek. Its sound is between and [].
• The voiceless alveolar non-sibilant fricative  or , using the alveolar diacritic from the Extended IPA, is similar to the th in English thin. It occurs in Icelandic.
• The voiceless alveolar rhotic fricative sounds like a voiceless, strongly articulated version of English r (somewhat like what the English cluster hr would sound like) and occurs in Edo, a language spoken in Nigeria.
• The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative  sounds like a voiceless, strongly articulated version of English l (somewhat like what the English cluster hl would sound like) and is written as ll in Welsh.