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The 'voiced bilabial plosive' 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 voiced bilabial plosive occurs in English, and it is the sound denoted by the letter "b" in ''boy''. Many Indian languages, such as Hindi, have a two-way contrast between aspirated and plain .

Contents

Features

Occurrence

In English

In other languages

See also

Features

Features of the voiced bilabial plosive:

★ Its manner of articulation is plosive or stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.

★ 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.

Occurrence

In English

is one of the few phonemes in English that has a one-to-one correspondence with a letter. It is always denoted by "b" and, excluding a handful of words that are spelled with a silent "b" (e.g. ''doubt'' and ''lamb''), the letter always denotes . Phonetically, English is somewhat (although not completely) devoiced and may be represented with a diacritic: .

In other languages

★ Arabic: ﻛﺘﺐ , "he wrote"

★ Chechen: '''б'Iaьрг'' / '''b'järg'' "eye"

★ Czech: '''b'ota'' , "boot"

★ French: '''b'oue'' , "mud"

★ Georgian: '''ბ'ავშვი'' , "child"

★ German: '''B'ub'' , "boy"

★ Greek: '''μπ'όχα'' , "fug, reek"

★ Hindi: बाल , "hair"

★ Hungarian: '''b'a'b'a'' , "baby"

★ Italian: '''b'ue'' , "ox"

★ Norwegian: '''b'ål'' , "bonfire"

★ Piraha: ''pi'b'aóí'' [], "otter"

★ Polish: ''ro'b'ak'' , "worm"

★ Russian: , "fish"

★ Spanish: ''in'v'ertir'' , "to invest"

★ Swedish: '''b'ra'' , "good"

★ Turkish: '''b'ulut'' , "cloud"

See also

★ Betacism

★ List of phonetics topics