In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips.
The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are:
IPA | Description | Example | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Language | Orthography | IPA | Meaning | ||
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bilabial nasal | English | man | [mæn] | |
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voiceless bilabial plosive | English | spin | [sp?n] | |
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voiced bilabial plosive | English | bed | [b?d] | |
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voiceless bilabial fricative | Japanese | (fujisan) | [?u?isa?] | Mount Fuji |
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voiced bilabial fricative | Ewe | ??? | [?] | Ewe |
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bilabial approximant | Spanish | lobo | [loo] | wolf |
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bilabial trill | Nias | simbi | [si?i] | lower jaw |
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bilabial ejective | Adyghe | ? | [p'a] | meat |
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bilabial click release (many distinct consonants) | N?ng | ?oe | [koe] | meat |
Owere Igbo has a six-way contrast among bilabial stops: [p p? b b? ?]. Approximately 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tlingit, Chipewyan, Oneida, and Wichita.[1]
The extensions to the IPA also define a bilabial percussive ([?]) for striking the lips together (smacking the lips - see percussive consonant). A lip-smack in the non-percussive sense of the lips noisily parting would be [].[2]
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.