Voiced bilabial fricative

The voiced bilabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is Template:Angbr IPA, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is B. The official symbol Template:Angbr IPA is the Greek letter beta.

This letter is also often used to represent the bilabial approximant, though that is more precisely written with a lowering diacritic, that is Template:Angbr IPA. That sound may also be transcribed as an advanced labiodental approximant Template:Angbr IPA, in which case the diacritic is again frequently omitted, since no contrast is likely. It has been proposed that either a turned Template:Angbr IPA, reversed Template:Angbr IPA or affricate Template:Angbr IPA can be used as a dedicated symbol for the bilabial approximant, but despite occasional usage none of them have gained general acceptance.

It is extremely rare for a language to make a phonemic contrast between the voiced bilabial fricative and the bilabial approximant. The Mapos Buang language of New Guinea contains this contrast. Its bilabial approximant is analyzed as filling a phonological gap in the labiovelar series of the consonant system rather than the bilabial series. Proto-Germanic and Proto-Italic are reconstructed as having had a contrast between the voiced bilabial fricative and the voiced labial–velar approximant , albeit with being an allophone for another consonant in both cases. In Bashkir language, it is an intervocal allophone of , and it is contrastive with : Template:Gloss, Template:Gloss.

The bilabial fricative is diachronically unstable (likely to be considerably varied between dialects of a language that makes use of it) and is likely to shift to .

The sound is not the primary realization of any sound in English dialects except for Chicano English, but it can be produced by approximating the normal English between the lips; it can also sometimes occur as an allophone of after bilabial consonants.

Features

Features of the voiced bilabial fricative:

Occurrence

Voiced bilabial fricative

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Akei				'four'
Alekano				'nothing'
Angor				'horn'
Bengali	Eastern dialects		]	'Visa'	Allophone of Template:IPAslink in Bangladesh and Tripura; used in Western dialects.
Berta				'no'
Catalan				'before'	Approximant or fricative. Allophone of . Mainly found in betacist ( and merging) dialects. See Catalan phonology
Chinese dialects	Fuzhou			'eighth day of the month'	Allophone of and in certain intervocalic positions.
	Suburban Shanghainese	碗盞 ve tse		'bowl'	Usually or in other Wu dialects
Comorian		upvendza		'to love'	Contrasts with both and
Coptic	Bohairic	Template:Coptic		'brick'	Shifted to Template:IPAblink with a syllable coda allophone of Template:IPAblink in a later stage.
	Sahidic	Template:Coptic
Dahalo				'to want'	Weak fricative or approximant. It is a common intervocalic allophone of , and may be simply a plosive Template:IPAblink instead.
English	Some dialects	upvote		'upvote'	Less-common allophone of Template:IPAslink after , , or (the more-common alteration being the shifting of the earlier consonant to , , or , respectively, although // exist in free variation with //).
	Chicano	very		'very'	May be realized as Template:IPAblink instead.
Ewe				'Ewe'	Contrasts with both and
Fijian		ivava		'shoe'
German				'but'	Intervocalic and pre-lateral allophone of in casual speech. See Standard German phonology
Hopi		tsivot		'five'
Japanese		/		'Kobe'	Allophone of only in fast speech between vowels. See Japanese phonology
Kabyle				'to cut'
Kinyarwanda				'children'
Korean		//		'later'	Intervocalic allophone of before and . See Korean phonology
Luhya	Wanga Dialect	Nabongo		'title for a king'
Mapos Buang		venġévsën		'prayer'	Mapos Buang has both a voiced bilabial fricative and a bilabial approximant as separate phonemes. The fricative is transcribed as Template:Angbr, and the approximant as Template:Angbr.
Nepali				'Meeting'	Allophone of /bʱ/. See Nepali phonology
Portuguese	European			'Saturday'	Allophone of . See Portuguese phonology
Ripuarian	Colognian			'wine'	Allophone of syllable-initial for some speakers; can be instead. See Colognian phonology
Sardinian	Logudorese	paba	{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "paba.wav" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'pope'	Intervocalic allophone of as well as word-initial when the preceding word ends with a vowel and there is no pause between the words.
Turkish				'body'	Allophone of before and after rounded vowels. See Turkish phonology
Turkmen				'country'
Venda				'work party held by one who wants to have the land ploughed or cultivated'	Contrasts with /v/ and /w/
Zapotec	Tilquiapan	Template:Example needed			Allophone of

Bilabial approximant

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Amharic				'flower'	Allophone of medially between sonorants.
Asturian				'swing'	Allophone of
Basque				'daughter'	Allophone of
Catalan				'before'	Approximant or fricative. Allophone of . Mainly found in betacist ( and merging) dialects. See Catalan phonology
Cia-Cia		ᄫᅡᆯ루/walu	[β̞alu]	'eight'	Allophone of /β/
Dutch	SouthernTemplate:Sfnp		{{errorTemplate:Main other|Audio file "Nl-wang (Belgium).ogg" not found}}Template:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'cheek'	Labiovelar in northern Dutch.
Indonesian		tawa	[taβ̞a]	'laugh'	Allophone of /w/ by some younger speakers.
Japanese		/		'me'	Usually represented phonemically as .Template:Sfnp See Japanese phonology
Katë	Western			'wood'	Corresponds to and in other dialects.
Kyrgyz		ооба	[оːˈβ̞a]	'yes'	Allophone of /b/ medially between vowels.
Limburgish				'to want'	The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect.
Lombard				'he was going away'	Regular pronunciation of when intervocalic. Used also as an allophone for other positions.
Mapos Buang		wabeenġ		'kind of yam'	Mapos Buang has both a voiced bilabial fricative and a bilabial approximant as separate phonemes. The fricative is transcribed as {v}, and the approximant as {w}.
Occitan	Gascon			'then'	Allophone of
Ripuarian	Kerkrade			'smoke'	Weakly rounded; contrasts with . See Kerkrade dialect phonology
Spanish				'lava'	Ranges from close fricative to approximant. Allophone of . See Spanish phonology
Swedish	Central Standard			'problem'	Allophone of in casual speech. See Swedish phonology
Ukrainian				'she'	An approximant; the most common prevocalic realization of . Can vary with labiodental Template:IPAblink. See Ukrainian phonology

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

External links

• Template:Phoible