Bilabial consonant
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips.
Frequency
Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tlingit, Chipewyan, Oneida, and Wichita, though all of these have a labial–velar approximant /w/.
Varieties
The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are:
| IPA | Description | Example | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language | Orthography | IPA | Meaning | ||
| m̥ | voiceless bilabial nasal | Hmong | Hmoob | Hmong | |
| m | voiced bilabial nasal | English | man | man | |
| p | voiceless bilabial plosive | English | spin | spin | |
| b | voiced bilabial plosive | English | bed | bed | |
| p͡ɸ | voiceless bilabial affricate | Kaingang | fy | 'seed' | |
| b͡β | voiced bilabial affricate | Shipibo | boko | 'small intestine' | |
| ɸ | voiceless bilabial fricative | Japanese | 富士山 (fujisan) | Mount Fuji | |
| β | voiced bilabial fricative | Ewe | ɛʋɛ | Ewe | |
| β̞ | bilabial approximant | Spanish | lobo | wolf | |
| ⱱ̟ | voiced bilabial flap | Mono | vwa | 'send' | |
| ʙ̥ | voiceless bilabial trill | Pará Arára | 'to throw away' | ||
| ʙ | voiced bilabial trill | Nias | simbi | lower jaw | |
| pʼ | bilabial ejective stop | Adyghe | пӀэ | meat | |
| ɸʼ | bilabial ejective fricative | Yuchi | ḟasę | 'good evening!' | |
| ɓ̥ | voiceless bilabial implosive | Serer | [example needed] | ||
| ɓ | voiced bilabial implosive | Jamaican Patois | beat | beat | |
| k͡ʘ q͡ʘ ɡ͡ʘ ɢ͡ʘ ŋ͡ʘ ɴ͡ʘ |
bilabial clicks (many distinct consonants) | Nǁng | ʘoe | meat | |
Owere Igbo has a six-way contrast among bilabial stops: .[citation needed]
Other varieties
The extensions to the IPA also define a bilabial percussive ([ʬ] ) for smacking the lips together. A lip-smack in the non-percussive sense of the lips noisily parting would be .
The IPA chart shades out bilabial lateral consonants, which is sometimes read as indicating that such sounds are not possible. The fricatives and are often lateral, but since no language makes a distinction for centrality, the allophony is not noticeable.
See also
References
Citations
- ^ Maddieson, Ian (2008), "Absence of Common Consonants", in Haspelmath, Martin; Dryer, Matthew S.; Gil, David; Comrie, Bernard (eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures Online, Munich: Max Planck Digital Library
- ^ Jolkesky (2009), pp. 680–681.
- ^ Valenzuela, Márquez Pinedo & Maddieson (2001).
- ^ Olson (2004:233)
- ^ de Souza, Isaac Costa (2010). "3" (PDF). A Phonological Description of "Pet Talk" in Arara (MA). SIL Brazil. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-12. Retrieved 2014-01-09.
- ^ Crawford, James M. (1973). "Yuchi Phonology". International Journal of American Linguistics. 39 (3): 173–179. doi:10.1086/465261. S2CID 224808560.
- ^ Heselwood, Barry (2013). Phonetic Transcription in Theory and Practice. Edinburgh University Press. p. 121. doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748640737.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-7486-4073-7. JSTOR 10.3366/j.ctt9qdrqz. S2CID 60269763.
Sources
- General references
- Jolkesky, Marcelo Pinho de Valhery (2009), "Fonologia e prosódia do Kaingáng falado em Cacique Doble", Anais do SETA, 3, Campinas: Editora do IEL-UNICAMP: 675–685
- Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
- McDorman, Richard E. (1999). Labial Instability in Sound Change: Explanations for the Loss of /p/. Chicago: Organizational Knowledge Press. ISBN 0-9672537-0-5.
- Olson, Kenneth S. (2004). "Mono" (PDF). Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 34 (2): 233–238. doi:10.1017/S0025100304001744.
- Valenzuela, Pilar M.; Márquez Pinedo, Luis; Maddieson, Ian (2001). "Shipibo". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 31 (2): 281–285. doi:10.1017/S0025100301002109.
 | This phonetics article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |