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The 'voiceless bilabial plosive' is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is p. The voiceless bilabial plosive in English is spelled with 'p', as in ''pit'' or ''speed''.
is missing from about 10% of languages that have a . (See voiced velar plosive for another such gap.) This is an areal feature of the "circum-Saharan zone" (Africa north of the equator, including the Arabian peninsula). It is not known how old this areal feature is, and whether it might be a recent phenomenon due to Arabic as a prestige language (Arabic lost its in prehistoric times), or whether Arabic was itself affected by a more ancient areal pattern. It is found in other areas as well; for example, in Europe, Proto-Celtic and Old Basque are both reconstructed as having but no .
Nonetheless, the sound is very common cross-linguistically. Most languages have at least a plain , and some distinguish more than one variety. Many Indian languages, such as Hindi, have a two-way contrast between aspirated and plain .

Contents

Features

Varieties of the voiceless bilabial plosive

Occurrence

In English

In other languages

See also

Features

Features of the voiceless 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 voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.

★ 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.

Varieties of the voiceless bilabial plosive

IPA	Description
	plain p
	aspirated p
	palatalized p
	labialized p
	unreleased p
	voiced p
	ejective p

Occurrence

In English

English has both aspirated and plain , but they are allophones of the phoneme .
When occurs at the beginning of a word or a stressed syllable, like in ''print'', ''support'', or ''potato'', then it is always aspirated. When it occurs at the beginning of an unstressed syllable that isn't at the beginning of a word, like in ''occupant'', ''vapid'', or ''keeper'', then it is always unaspirated. When occurs in a consonant cluster following , like in ''spin'', ''sprain'', or ''suspend'', then it is always unaspirated. When it occurs at the end of a word, like in ''tip'', ''wasp'', or ''telescope'', then it is usually unaspirated, and if the word is at the end of an utterance, then the is often unreleased.

In other languages

★ Czech: '''p'es'' , "dog"

★ French: '''p'omme'' , "apple"

★ Georgian: 'პ'ირი , "mouth"

★ German: '''p'ack'' , "pile"

★ Greek: 'π'όδι , "foot, leg"

★ Hindi: पाल , "nurture, protection"

★ Hungarian: '''p'á'p'a'' , "pope"

★ Italian: '''p'a'p'à'' , "dad"

★ Japanese: ポスト ('''p'osuto'') , "mailbox"

★ Norwegian: '''p'a'pp'a'' , "dad"

★ Pashto: ﭙﺎﻧﻴﺮ [], "cheese"

★ Piraha: '''p'ibaóí'' [], "otter"

★ Portuguese '''p'ai'' , "father"

★ Russian , "fruit"

★ Spanish: '''p'eso'' , "weight"

★ Swedish: ''a'p'a'' , "ape"

★ Turkish: ''ka'p''' , "pot"

See also

★ List of phonetics topics