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 , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is B. The symbol is the Greek letter beta. This symbol is also sometimes used to represent the bilabial approximant, though that is more clearly written with the lowering diacritic, .

Features

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Features of the voiced 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 type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

In English

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This sound does not exist in English. An English speaker can make this sound by pronouncing a b, with the lips touching only lightly, so that they 'buzz' as they do for a v.

In other languages

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Ewe

Ewe contrasts a bilabial , written , with a labiodental /v/, written v, as in "Ewe" vs. "two".

Spanish

In some dialects of European Spanish, v is pronounced In other European dialects, as well as most American Spanish, both b and v are approximants [ between vowels, though they are often transcribed as if they were fricatives.

See also

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• List of phonetics topics

Fricative consonants | Bilabial consonants

Stimmhafter bilabialer Frikativ | Consonne fricative bilabiale voisée | Fricativa bilabiale sonora | 有声両唇摩擦音 | Spółgłoska szczelinowa dwuwargowa dźwięczna | Tonlös bilabial frikativa