Th-fronting is thepronunciation of the English "th" as "f" or "v". Whenth-fronting is applied,[θ] becomes[f] or[ɸ] (for example,three is pronounced likefree) and[ð] becomes[v] or[β] (for example,further is pronounced likefervour). (Here "fronting" refers to the position in the mouth where the sound is produced, not the position of the sound in the word, with the "th" coming from the tongue as opposed to the "f" or "v" coming from the more-forward lower lip.) Unlike the fronting of[θ] to[f], the fronting of[ð] to[v] usually does not occur word-initially. For example, whilefurther is pronounced asfervour,that is rarely pronounced as *vat, although this was found in the speech of South-East London in a survey completed 1990–1994.^[1]Th-fronting is a prominent feature of several dialects of English, notablyCockney,Essex dialect,Estuary English, someWest Country andYorkshire dialects,Manchester English,^[2]African American Vernacular English, andLiberian English, as well as in many non-native English speakers (e.g.Hong Kong English, though the details differ among those accents).^[3]

The first reference toth-fronting is in the "low English" of London in 1787, though only a single author in that century writes about it, and it was likely perceived as an idiosyncrasy, rather than a full-fledged dialect feature of Cockney English, even into the early half of the twentieth century.^[4] The feature was presumed to be reasonably common in London speakers born around 1850 and in Bristol by 1880.^[5] The use of the labiodental fricatives[f] and[v] for the dental fricatives[θ] and[ð] was noted in Yorkshire in 1876.^[6] In his 1892 bookA Grammar of the Dialect ofWindhill,Joseph Wright noted variableth-fronting in his district in words such asthink,third andsmithy.^[7]

In some words,th-fronting has beenlexicalised. For example, the wordwithout was lexicalised towivoot in some dialects of Northern England and Scotland.^[8]

In theSurvey of English Dialects of the 1950s and early 1960s,th-fronting was found in two main areas of England. One was the area around Bristol in the West Country. The other was in the area around London and Essex.^[9] It was also noted in theSuffolk dialect by AOD Claxton in 1968, albeit only for certain words (e.g.three andthumb but notthaw orthought).^[10]

Comparing his studies over time inNorwich,Peter Trudgill concluded thatth-fronting had been completely absent in 1968 and then very common amongst younger people by 1983.^[11] Althoughth-fronting is found occasionally in the middle and upper (middle) classEnglish accents as well, there is still a marked social difference between working and middle class speakers.Th-fronting is regarded as a 'boundary marker' between Cockney andEstuary English, as depicted in the first descriptions of the latter form of English^[12][13] and confirmed by a phonetic study conducted by researcher Ulrike Altendorf. Nevertheless, Altendorf points out thatth-fronting is found occasionally in middle class (Estuary) speech as well and concludes that "it is currently making its way into the middle class English accent and thus into Estuary English".^[14]

In popular music, the singerJoe Brown's 1960s backing band was christenedThe Bruvvers (that is, "the brothers" withth-fronting). The 1960 musicalFings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be was stated to be a Cockney Comedy. Rock musicianKeith Richards is commonly referred to as "Keef".^[15]

Up until the late 20th century,th-fronting was common in speakers of Australian English from North Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast of Queensland. This may stem from the relatively high number of London cockneys who settled there during the Queensland gold rushes of the 19th century.^{[citation needed]} The practice is gradually dying out as the influx of interstate and international immigrants increases.

The following is a sample of a speaker of the Cockney accent who hasth-fronting (affected words are in bold):

• http://www.gazzaro.it/accents/sound/Cockney.mp3

My dad came fromWapping and me mum came fromPoplar. Me dad was one of eleven kids… and Wapping in them days really was one of the poorest parts of London. I mean they really didn't have shoes on their feet. I'm talking about seventy years ago now. Erm… and Poplar was… sli… just slightly a cut above Wapping; erm… you waseitherEast End respectable or you was sort of East End villain, you know, and my family was respectable onboth sides. But mefather had a very tough time because hisfather died when he was nineteen, leaving him the only one working to bring up elevenbrothers… tenbrothers and sisters and on aThursday night he'd sometimes go home and the youngest two would be crying in the corner and he'd say “What's the matter with them, ma?” “Oh, well, Harry, you know it's Thursday night, and you don't get paid till tomorrow.” and they literally didn't have any food in the house.

In that recording,either,both,father,brothers andThursday are pronounced[ˈɪjvə],[ˈbɐʊ̈f],[ˈfɑ̹ːvə],[ˈbrɐvəz] and[ˈfɜːzdi]. Pronouns (they,them,their) andthe are not affected.

Th-fronting in the speech of working-class adolescents inGlasgow was reported in 1998, provoking public as well as academic interest. The finding ofth-fronting in Glaswegian creates a difficulty for models of language change which hinge on dialect contact associated with geographical mobility since the Glaswegian speakers who used[f] most in the 1997 sample are also those with the lowest geographical mobility. In addition,th-fronting was reported as "a relatively new phenomenon" in Edinburgh in March 2013.^[16]

• List of th-fronting homophones
• Th-stopping

• English phonology
• Splits and mergers in English phonology
• English th

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use British English from January 2019
• All Wikipedia articles written in British English
• Pages with plain IPA
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from July 2010