Voiceless labiodental fricative

A voiceless labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in a number of spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨f⟩.

Voiceless labiodental fricative
f
IPA number	128
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	f
Unicode (hex)	U+0066
X-SAMPA	f
Braille
Image

A voiceless labiodental approximant is transcribed in IPA as ⟨ʋ̥⟩.

Features

Features of a voiceless labiodental fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is labiodental, which means it is articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
• Its phonation is un-voiced, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
• Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the central–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Abkhaz		фы/fy	[fə]	'lightning'	See Abkhaz phonology
Adyghe		тфы/tfy	[tfə]ⓘ	'five'	Corresponds to [xʷ] in Kabardian and Proto-Circassian
Albanian		faqe	[facɛ]	'cheek'
Arabic	Modern Standard[1]	ظرف/th'arf	[ðˤɑrf]	'envelope'	See Arabic phonology
Armenian	Eastern[2]	ֆուտբոլ/futbol	[fut̪bol]ⓘ	'football'
Assyrian		ܦܬܐ pata	[fɔθɔ]	'face'	Used mostly by Western speakers; corresponds to /p/ in most other dialects.
Assamese		বৰফ/borof	[bɔɹɔf]	'snow/ice'
Azeri		tüfəng	[t̪y̆fæɲɟ]	'ɡun'
Basque		fin	[fin]	'thin'
Bengali		ফুল/ful	[ful]	'flower'	Allophone of /pʰ/. See Bengali phonology
Catalan[3]		fort	[ˈfɔɾt]	'strong'	See Catalan phonology
Chechen		факс / faks	[faks]	'fax'	Used only in loanwords. There is no /f/ in Chechen; /f/ was replaced by /p/ in loanwords that contained it before increased influence from the Russian language popularized the usage of /f/.
Chinese	Cantonese	飛 / fēi	[fei̯˥]ⓘ	'to fly'	See Cantonese phonology
	Mandarin	飛 (traditional) / 飞(simplified) / fēi	[feɪ̯˥]ⓘ		See Mandarin phonology
Coptic		ϥⲧⲟⲟⲩ/ftoow	[ftow]	'four'
Czech		foukat	[ˈfoʊ̯kat]	'to blow'	See Czech phonology
Dutch[4]		fiets	[fiːts]	'bike'	See Dutch phonology
English	All dialects	fill	[fɪɫ]ⓘ	'fill'	See English phonology
	Cockney[5]	think	[fɪŋk]	'think'	Socially marked,[6] with speakers exhibiting some free variation with [θ] (with which it corresponds to in other dialects).[7] See th-fronting.
	Many British urban dialects[8]
	Some younger East Anglian English
	Some younger New Zealanders[9][10]
	Broad South African[11]	myth	[mɨf]	'myth'	Possible realization of /θ/, more common word-finally. See White SAE phonology.
	Indian South African[12]	fair	[ʋ̥eː]	'fair'	Described as an approximant. Corresponds to /f/ in other accents.
Esperanto		fajro	[ˈfajɾo]	'fire'	See Esperanto phonology
Ewe[13]		eflen	[éflé̃]	'he spit off'
French[14]		fabuleuse	[fäbyˈløːz̪]	'fabulous'	See French phonology
Galician		faísca	[faˈiska]	'spark'	See Galician phonology
German		fade	[ˈfaːdə]	'bland'	See Standard German phonology
Goemai		f'at'	[fat]	'to blow'
Greek		φύση / fysī	[ˈfisi]	'nature'	See Modern Greek phonology
Gujarati		ફળ / faļ	[fəɭ]	'fruit'	See Gujarati phonology
Hebrew		סופר/sofer	[so̞fe̞ʁ]	'writer'	See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindustani		साफ़ / صاف/saaf	[sɑːf]	'clean'	See Hindustani phonology
Hmong		𖬌𖬜𖬵 / foob	[fõ˦]	'to sue, to indict'
Hungarian		figyel	[ˈfiɟɛl]	'he/she pays attention'	See Hungarian phonology
Indonesian		fajar	[fadʒar]	'dawn'	See Indonesian phonology
Italian		fantasma	[fän̪ˈt̪äzmä]	'ghost'	See Italian phonology
Kabardian		фыз/fyz	[fəz]	'woman'	Corresponds to [ʂʷ] in Adyghe and Proto-Circassian
Kabyle		afus	[afus]
Kazakh		faqır / фақыр	[faqr]	'poor'
Khmer		កាហ្វេ / kahvé	[kaːfeː]	'coffee'	See Khmer phonology
Macedonian		фонетика/fonetika	[fɔnetika]	'phonetics'	See Macedonian phonology
Māori		whakapapa	[fakapapa]	'genealogy'	Less commonly [ɸ]. See Māori phonology.
Malay		feri	[feri]	'ferry'	Only occurs in loanwords
Malayalam		ഫലം/falam	[fɐlɐm]	'fruit, result'	Only occurs in loanwords in the standard version. ഫ is used to represent both /pʰ/ and /f/ but nowadays most people pronounce /pʰ/ as [f]. Occurs in native words in the Jeseri dialect.
Maltese		fenek	[fenek]	'rabbit'
Norwegian		filter	[filtɛɾ]	'filter'	See Norwegian phonology
Persian		فروخت/foruxt	[foɹu:xt]	'he/she sold'	See Persian phonology
Polish[15]		futro	[ˈfut̪rɔ]ⓘ	'fur'	See Polish phonology
Portuguese[16]		fala	[ˈfalɐ]	'speech'	See Portuguese phonology
Punjabi		ਫ਼ੌਜੀ/faujī	[fɔːd͡ʒi]	'soldier'
Romanian[17]		foc	[fo̞k]	'fire'	See Romanian phonology
Russian[18]		орфография/orfografiya	[ɐrfɐˈɡrafʲɪjə]	'orthography'	Contrasts with palatalized form. See Russian phonology
Scottish Gaelic[19]		faisg	[faʃkʲ]	'near, close'	Loosely articulated, can resemble [ɸ]. See Scottish Gaelic phonology
Serbo-Croatian[20]		фаза / faza	[fǎːz̪ä]	'phase'	See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Slovak		fúkať	[ˈfu̞ːkäc]	'to blow'	See Slovak phonology
Slovene	Standard	flavta	[ˈfláːu̯t̪à]	'flute'	See Slovene phonology
	Some dialects	vsi	[ˈfs̪î]	'all (people)'	Allophone of /v/ before voiceless obstruents in dialects with /ʋ/ → /v/ development. See Slovene phonology
Somali		feex	[fɛħ]	'wart'	See Somali phonology
Spanish[21]		fantasma	[fã̠n̪ˈt̪a̠zma̠]	'ghost'	See Spanish phonology
Swahili		kufa	[kufɑ]	'to die'
Swedish		fisk	[ˈfɪsk]	'fish'	See Swedish phonology
Thai		ฝน/fon	[fon˩˩˦]	'rain'
Toda		nes̲of	[nes̲of]	'moon'
Turkish		saf	[ˈs̟ɑf]	'pure'	See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian[22]		Фастів/fastiv	[ˈfɑsʲtʲiw]	'Fastiv'	See Ukrainian phonology
Vietnamese[23]		pháo	[faːw˧ˀ˥]	'firecracker'	See Vietnamese phonology
Welsh		ffon	[fɔn]	'stick'	See Welsh phonology
West Frisian		fol	[foɫ]	'full'	See West Frisian phonology
Yi		ꃚ / fu	[fu˧]	'roast'
Zapotec	Tilquiapan[24]	cafe	[kafɘ]	'coffee'	Used primarily in loanwords from Spanish

See also

• List of phonetics topics