A voiceless labiodental nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɱ̊⟩, a combination of the letter for the voiced labiodental nasal and a diacritic indicating voicelessness; in certain sources, the diacritic can be found below ⟨ɱ̥⟩.[1]

Features

Features of a voiceless labiodental nasal:

  • It is a nasal consonant, which means air is exclusively allowed to escape through the nose for nasal stops; otherwise, in addition to through the mouth.
  • Its place of articulation is labiodental, which means it is articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
  • 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.
  • 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

LanguageWordIPAMeaningNotes
Angami[1] pemhewaché[dubious – discuss] [fəɱ̊ʰəwat͡ʃe][2][dubious – discuss] 'extinguish' Allophone of /m̥ʰ/ before /ə/.
Kinyamwezi[3] mfulá [ɱ̊fulá] 'good' Allophone of class-9/10 nasal prefix[clarification needed] /N/ before /f/.

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 Blankenship, Barbara; Ladefoged, Peter (1993). "Phonetic structures of Khonoma Angami" (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 16 (2): 76.
  2. ↑ McCabe (1887). Outline Grammar of the Angami Naga Language with a vocabulary and illustrative sentences. p. 36. Retrieved 9 December 2025.
  3. ↑ Maganga, Clement; Schadeberg, Thilo C. (1992). Kinyamwezi: Grammar, Texts, Vocabulary. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe. pp. 15–53.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_labiodental_nasal