"th" as in "the" or "thread"
 

Is English the only language to pronounce "th" as it is pronounced in "the" and "thread"?

Je ne sais pas, je ne parle pas anglais

Plbbbt.......
Yeah English the only one ever....plbbbt.
To answer your question......No. Greek and Ancient Greek uses it all the time. There's a strong arguement for the Greeks using it first (as a common). Which is where "theo" came from which means god. In Greek the d sound is harder however. Same roots.

In summary:

Not only are we using it- we are pronouncing it wrong.

your question confuses me a bit, since the "th" is pronounced slightly differently in "thread" and "the". In Spanish, the consonant "d" is often pronounced similarly to the "th" in "the"

Are you asking whether any other language uses these sounds?

Or whether any other language spells them the same way?

:eyebrow:
Well, I speak English and I DON'T pronounce the "th" in those words the same.

I think that's what Spexx is saying ferret: it's spelled the same but it's pronounced differently....or am I mistaken Spexx?

The original comment IS rather ambiguous, isn't it...

Do you pronounce Ferry and Fairy the same way?

yes. don't you? why is that relevant? (confused)

I do. It's not relevant, but Spex's question seems to be answered, so I asked my own.

I met a woman a couple weeks ago who corrected my pronunciation of ferry. I pronounced it just like fairy, but she said I should pronounce it more like feh-rry.

whenever someone corrects your pronunciation, tell them that they have bad breath.

say, " Oh, thanks. and...uhm.....you have bad breath. do you have any mints? or gum or something?"

try it. you'll feel very empowered afterwards. you should say something fucked up to at least one person a day.

So, according to Wikipedia:

almost all European and Asian languages lack the voiced dental fricative ("the"), but it does have a list of languages, like English, the Spanish one I mentioned, Greek, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental_fricative

And the other sound, the voiceless dental fricative, is also missing in many major languages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_dental_fricative

that answer your question?

You make it sound sooo dirty. :blush:

Yet, so fascinating.