A voiceless 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 ⟨ɸ⟩, a Latinized form of the Greek letter Phi.
Features
Features of a voiceless bilabial fricative:
- Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
- Its place of articulation is bilabial, which means it is articulated with both lips.
- Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
- It is an oral consonant, which means that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
- Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the median–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
- Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most speech sounds.
Occurrence
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ainu[1][2] | フチ | [ɸu̜tʃi] | 'grandmother' | Allophone of /h/ before /u/ | |
| Angor[citation needed] | fi | [ɸi] | 'body' | ||
| Bahuana | [dʌŭɸʌŭ] | 'mouth' | [3] | ||
| Bengali | Eastern dialects | ফল | [ɸɔl] | 'fruit' | Allophone of /f/ in some eastern dialects; regular allophone of /pʰ/ in western dialects |
| Damin | fiwi | [ɸiwi] | 'boomerang' | ||
| English | Scouse | [example needed] | Allophone of /p/. See British English phonology[4] | ||
| Ewe[5] | éƒá | [éɸá] | 'he polished' | Contrasts with /f/ | |
| Italian | Tuscan[6] | i capitani | [iˌhäɸiˈtäːni] | 'the captains' | Postvocalic allophone of /p/.[6] See Italian phonology and Tuscan gorgia. |
| Itelmen | чуфчуф | [tʃuɸtʃuɸ] | 'rain' | ||
| Japanese[7] | 腐敗 / fuhai | [ɸɯhai] | 'decay' | Allophone of /h/ before /ɯ/. See Japanese phonology | |
| Kaingang | fy | [ɸɨ] | 'seed' | ||
| Korean | 후두개 / hudugae | [ɸʷudugɛ] | 'epiglottis' | Allophone of /h/ before /o/, /u/, and /w/. See Korean phonology | |
| Kwama[citation needed] | [kòːɸɛ́] | 'basket' | |||
| Māori | whakapapa | [ɸɐkɐˈpɐpɐ] | 'genealogy' | Now more commonly /f/ due to the influence of English. See Māori phonology. | |
| Nepali | बाफ | [bäɸ] | 'vapour' | Allophone of /pʰ/. See Nepali phonology | |
| Odoodee[citation needed] | pagai | [ɸɑɡɑi] | 'coconut' | ||
| Okinawan | fifaci | [ɸiɸatɕi] | 'type of spice' | ||
| Spanish | Some dialects [8][9] | fuera | ⓘ | 'outside' | Non-standard variant of /f/. See Spanish phonology |
| North-Central Peninsular[10] | abdicar | [a̠ɸðiˈka̠ɾ] | 'abdicate' | Allophone of /b/ in the coda. In this dialect, the unvoiced coda obstruents - /p, t, k/ - are realized as fricatives only if they precede a voiced consonant; otherwise, they emerge as stops. | |
| Southern Peninsular[11] | los vuestros | [lɔh ˈɸːwɛhtːɾɔh] | 'yours' | It varies with [βː] in some accents. Allophone of /b/ after /s/. | |
| Shompen[12] | kofeoi | [koɸeoi] | 'bench' | ||
| Sylheti | ꠙꠥꠀ/fua | [ɸua] | 'boy' | ||
| Tahitian | ʻōfī | [ʔoːɸiː] | 'snake' | Allophone of /f/ | |
| Taruma[13] | fwa | [ɸʷa] | 'fire' | ||
| Turkish | Some speakers[14] | ufuk | ⓘ | 'horizon' | Allophone of /f/ before rounded vowels and, to a lesser extent, word-finally after rounded vowels.[14] See Turkish phonology |
| Turkmen | fabrik | [ɸabrik] | 'factory' | ||
| Yalë | dife | [diɸe] | 'village' | ||
Voiceless bilabial approximant
A voiceless bilabial approximant is a similar sound with less turbulent airflow. The IPA has no dedicated symbol that represents this sound, but it may be transcribed as ⟨ɸ̞⟩ (a lowered [ɸ]), or equivalently ⟨ɸ˕⟩ (with the obsolete adjacent diacritic) to avoid clash with the ascender and descender.
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kamasau[15] | ngape | [ˈŋɑɸ̞e] | 'bone' | Allophone of the voiceless bilabial phoneme, described by different authors as either /ɸ/ or /p/. In free variation with [b, p, pʰ, p̆, ɸ, ɸ̞], depending on the consonant position and dialect. | |
| Mazatec | Mazatlán[16] | [ɸ̞ī] | 'go' | Primary realization of /β̞/ when pre-aspirated. | |
See also
Notes
- ↑ Moran, Steven; McCloy, Daniel, eds. (2019). Hokkaido Ainu sound inventory (SPA). Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. Stanford Phonology Archive. Retrieved 12 October 2026 – via PHOIBLE 2.0.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ Ijas, Silja (2026). "Start here!" (Google Site). Ainu Language Grammar Guide (in Ainu). Google. Archived from the original on 10 October 2026. Retrieved 12 October 2026.
- ↑ Ramirez, Henri (1992). "Le Bahuana: une nouvelle langue de la famille arawak" (PDF). Amerindia. 17 supplement 1. ISSN 0221-8852.
- ↑ Watson, Kevin (2007). Illustrations of the IPA: Liverpool English (Cambridge University Press ed.). Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37. pp. 351–360.
- ↑ Ladefoged (2005:156)
- 1 2 Hall (1944:75)
- ↑ Okada (1999:118)
- ↑ Boyd-Bowman (1953:229)
- ↑ Cotton & Sharp (1988:15)
- ↑ "Coda Obstruents and Local Constraint Conjunction in North-Central Peninsular Spanish" (PDF). Retrieved 2019-04-21.
- ↑ Pérez, Aguilar & Jiménez (1998:225–228)
- ↑ "The language of the Shom Pen: a language isolate in the Nicobar Islands" (PDF). Mother Tongue. 12: 179–202.
- ↑ Serke, Anna K. (2022). A description of Taruma phonology (Thesis). Universitat Leiden.
- 1 2 Göksel & Kerslake (2005:6)
- ↑ Holt, Charles; Sanders, Joy (2023). Allophonic Variation in Voiceless Bilabials in Kamasau (PDF). DIAL Conference Proceedings. Dallas: Dallas International University. Retrieved 3 June 2026.
- ↑ Klint, Ryan David, Non-modal voicing as morphemic features in Íénná, Mazatec of Mazatlán Villa de Flores, SIL International, retrieved 3 June 2026
References
- Boyd-Bowman, Peter (1953), "Sobre la pronunciación del español en el Ecuador", Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 7: 221–233, doi:10.24201/nrfh.v7i1/2.310
- Cotton, Eleanor Greet; Sharp, John (1988), Spanish in the Americas, Georgetown University Press, ISBN 978-0-87840-094-2
- Göksel, Asli; Kerslake, Celia (2005), Turkish: a comprehensive grammar, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415114943
- Hall, Robert A. Jr. (1944), "Italian phonemes and orthography", Italica, 21 (2), American Association of Teachers of Italian: 72–82, doi:10.2307/475860, JSTOR 475860
- Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell
- Okada, Hideo (1999), "Japanese", in International Phonetic Association (ed.), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, pp. 117–119, ISBN 978-0-52163751-0
- Pérez, Ramón Morillo-Velarde; Aguilar, Rafael Cano; Jiménez, Antonio Narbona (1998), El Español hablado en Andalucía, Editorial Ariel, ISBN 84-344-8225-8
