Bilabial consonant

Places of articulation
Labial — Bilabial —— Labial–velar —— Labial–coronal — Labiodental — Dentolabial Bidental Coronal — Linguolabial — Interdental — Dental — Denti-alveolar — Alveolar — Postalveolar —— Palato-alveolar —— Retroflex Dorsal — Postalveolar —— Alveolo-palatal — Palatal —— Labial–palatal — Velar — Uvular —— Uvular–epiglottal Radical — Pharyngeal — Epiglotto-pharyngeal — Epiglottal Glottal Peripheral
Tongue shape
Apical Laminal Subapical Lateral Sulcal Palatal Pharyngeal

In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are:

IPA	Description	Example
		Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
	bilabial nasal	English	man	[mæn]	man
	voiceless bilabial stop	English	spin	[spɪn]	spin
	voiced bilabial stop	English	bed	[bɛd]	bed
	voiceless bilabial fricative	Japanese	富士山 (fujisan)	[ɸuʑisaɴ]	Mount Fuji
	voiced bilabial fricative	Ewe	ɛʋɛ	[ɛ̀βɛ̀]	Ewe
	bilabial approximant	Spanish	lobo	[loβ̞o]	wolf
	bilabial trill	Nias	simbi	[siʙi]	lower jaw
	bilabial ejective	Adyghe	пӀэ	[pʼa]	meat
	bilabial click	Nǁng	ʘoe	[ʘoe]	meat

Owere Igbo has a six-way contrast among bilabial stops: [p pʰ ɓ̥ b b̤ ɓ]. Approximately 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether; these include Tlingit, Chipewyan, Oneida, and Wichita.

See also

• Place of articulation
• List of phonetics topics

References

Notes

General references

• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8. 
• McDorman, Richard E. (1999). Labial Instability in Sound Change: Explanations for the Loss of /p/. Chicago: Organizational Knowledge Press. ISBN 0-967-25370-5.