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 Taushiro, Tlingit, Chipewyan, Oneida, and Wichita, though all of these have a labial–velar approximant .
Varieties Some bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are:
IPA Description Example Language Orthography IPA Meaning voiceless bilabial nasal Hmong Hmong voiced bilabial nasal English man man voiceless bilabial plosive English spin spin voiced bilabial plosive English bed bed voiceless bilabial affricateKaingang 'seed' voiced bilabial affricate Shipibo 'small intestine' voiceless bilabial fricative Japanese () Mount Fuji voiced bilabial fricative Ewe Ewe bilabial approximant Spanish wolf voiced bilabial flap Mono 'send' voiceless bilabial trill Pará Arára 'to throw away' voiced bilabial trill Nias lower jaw bilabial ejective stop Adyghe meat bilabial ejective fricative Yuchi voiceless bilabial implosive Kaqchikel 'pot' voiced bilabial implosive Jamaican Patois beat bilabial clicks (many distinct consonants) Nǁng meat
Owere Igbo has a six-way contrast among bilabial stops: .
The IPA chart shades out bilabial lateral consonants. This is because lateral consonants are defined as ones in which the airflow passes over the side of the tongue; the category therefore does not apply to labial consonants. (See also labiodental consonant, which very commonly have airflow at the side of the mouth.)
Other varieties
The extensions to the IPA also define a () for smacking the lips together. A lip-smack in the non-percussive sense of the lips audibly parting would be an ingressive .
See also Place of articulation Index of phonetics articles
References Citations
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