The voiced labiodental nasal is a type of

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...

al sound. The symbol in the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...

that represents this sound is . The IPA symbol is a lowercase letter ''m'' with a leftward hook protruding from the lower right of the letter. Occasionally it is instead transcribed as an with a dental

diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...

: (for example in

extIPA The Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for Disordered Speech, commonly abbreviated extIPA , are a set of letters and diacritics devised by the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association to augment the Internatio ...

, where the two transcriptions are presented as variants). The labiodental pronunciation of is very similar to that of the

bilabial nasal The voiced bilabial nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is m. The bilabial nasal occurs in ...

, but instead of the lips touching each other, the lower lip touches the upper teeth. The position of the lips and teeth is generally the same as for the production of the labiodental

fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...

s and , though air escapes between the lip and the teeth in the case of the fricatives. Although commonly appearing in languages, it is overwhelmingly an

allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...

restricted to a position before the

labiodental consonant In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth. Labiodental consonants in the IPA The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are: The IPA chart shades out ''lab ...

s and . A phonemic has only been reported for the Kukuya language, which contrasts it with and is "accompanied by strong protrusion of both lips". It is before and before and , perhaps because labialization is constrained by the spread front vowels; it does not occur before the back (rounded) vowels and . It is doubted by some scholars that true closure can be made by a labiodental gesture because of gaps between the incisors, which for many speakers would allow air to flow during the occlusion. This is particularly pertinent considering that one of the Kukuya words with this consonant, , means a 'gap between filed incisors,' a practice of the local people. The might therefore be better characterized as a labiodental nasal

approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce ...

than as a nasal occlusive. Nonetheless, is extremely common around the world phonetically, as it is the universal allophone of and a very common allophone of before the labiodental fricatives and , as for example in English ''comfort'' and ''circumvent'', and, for many people, ''infinitive'' and ''invent''. In the

Angami language Angami (also: Gnamei, Ngami, Tsoghami, Tsugumi, Monr, Tsanglo, Tenyidie) is a Naga language spoken in the Naga Hills in the northeastern part of India, in Kohima district, Nagaland. In 2001, there is an estimate of 125,000 first language (L1) ...

, occurs as an allophone of before . In Drubea, is reported as an allophone of before nasal vowels. A proposal to retire the letter was made in the run-up to the

Kiel Convention The International Phonetic Alphabet was created soon after the International Phonetic Association was established in the late 19th century. It was intended as an international system of phonetic transcription for oral languages, originally for ...

of 1989, with the labiodental nasal to be transcribed solely by , but the proposal was defeated in committee.''JIPA'' 18(2) p.85.

Features

Features of the voiced labiodental nasal:

Occurrence

Phonemic is extremely rare. As an allophone of nasal consonants before or , however, is very common.

Features

Occurrence

See also

Notes

References

External links