Voiced bilabial fricative

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 ⟨β⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is B. The symbol ⟨β⟩ is the Greek letter beta.

Voiced bilabial fricative
β
IPA Number	127
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	β
Unicode (hex)	U+03B2
X-SAMPA	B
Braille
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Voiced bilabial approximant
β̞
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This letter is also often used to represent the bilabial approximant, though that is more clearly written with a lowering diacritic, that is ⟨β̞⟩. Theoretically, it could also be transcribed as an advanced labiodental approximant ⟨ʋ̟⟩, but this symbol is hardly ever, if at all, used so. It has been proposed that either a turned ⟨β⟩ or reversed ⟨β⟩ be used as a dedicated symbol for the bilabial approximant, but despite occasional usage this has not gained general acceptance.[1]

It is extremely rare for a language to make a phonemic contrast between the voiced bilabial fricative and the bilabial approximant. The Mapos Buang language of New Guinea contains this contrast. Its bilabial approximant is analyzed as filling a phonological gap in the labiovelar series of the consonant system rather than the bilabial series.[2]

The bilabial fricative is diachronically unstable and is likely to shift to [v].[3]

The sound is not used in English dialects except for Chicano English, but it can be produced by approximating the normal English [v] between the lips.

Features

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 is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.

• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.

• Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the central–lateral dichotomy does not apply.

• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Voiced bilabial fricative

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Akei		[βati]		'four'
Alekano		hanuva	[hɑnɯβɑ]	'nothing'
Angor		fufung	[ɸuβuŋ]	'horn'
Bengali		ভিসা	[βisa]	'Visa'	See Bengali phonology
Berta		[βɑ̀lɑ̀ːziʔ]		'no'
Min Dong Chinese	Fuzhou[4]	初八/ chĕ̤ báik	[t͡sœ˥˧βaiʔ˨˦]	'eighth day of the month'	Allophone of /p/ and /pʰ/ in certain intervocalic positions.[4]
Wu Chinese	Chuansha	碗哉/ve tze	[βe̝˧˧˦tsɛ̝˥]	'bowl'	Usually [v] in other Wu Chinese dialects[5]
Comorian		upvendza	[uβendza]	'to love'	Contrasts with both [v] and [w]
Dahalo[6]		[koːβo]		'to want'	Weak fricative or approximant. It is a common intervocalic allophone of /b/, and may be simply a plosive [b] instead.[6]
English	Chicano	very	[βɛɹi]	'very'	May be realized as [b] instead.
Ewe[7]		Eʋe	[èβe]	'Ewe'	Contrasts with both [v] and [w]
German[8][9]		aber	[ˈaːβɐ]	'but'	Intervocalic and pre-lateral allophone of /b/ in casual speech.[8][9] See Standard German phonology
Hebrew		אבל‎	['äˈβal]	'however'
Hopi		tsivot	[tsi:βot]	'five'
Kabyle		bri	[βri]	'to cut'
Kinyarwanda		abana	[aβana]	'children'
Korean		추후/chuhu/追後	[ˈt͡ɕʰuβʷu]	'later'	Allophone of /h/. See Korean phonology
Luhya	Wanga Dialect	Nabongo	[naβonɡo]	'title for a king'
Mapos Buang[2]		venġévsën	[βəˈɴɛβt͡ʃen]	'prayer'	Mapos Buang has both a voiced bilabial fricative and a bilabial approximant as separate phonemes. The fricative is transcribed as ⟨v⟩, and the approximant as ⟨w⟩.[2]
Portuguese	European[10][11]	sábado	[ˈsaβɐðu]	'Saturday'	Allophone of /b/. See Portuguese phonology
Ripuarian	Colognian	wing	[βɪŋ]	'wine'	Allophone of syllable-initial /v/ for some speakers; can be [ʋ ~ w ~ ɰ] instead. See Colognian phonology
Sardinian	Logudorese dialect[12]	paba	[ˈpäːβä]	'pope'	Intervocalic allophone of /b/ as well as word-initial /p/ when the preceding word ends with a vowel and there is no pause between the words.[12]
Turkish[13]		vücut	[βy̠ˈd͡ʒut̪]	'body'	Allophone of /v/ before and after rounded vowels.[13] See Turkish phonology
Turkmen		watan	[βatan]	'country'
Zapotec	Tilquiapan[14]				Allophone of /b/

Bilabial approximant

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Amharic[15]		አበባ	[aβ̞əβ̞a]	'flower'	Allophone of /b/ medially between sonorants.[15]
Basque[16]		alaba	[alaβ̞a]	'daughter'	Allophone of /b/
Catalan[17]		rebost	[rəˈβ̞ɔst]	'larder'	Approximant or fricative. Allophone of /b/. Mainly found in betacist (/b/ and /v/ merging) dialects. See Catalan phonology
Japanese[18]		神戸市/kōbe-shi	[ko̞ːβ̞e̞ ɕi]	'Kobe'	Allophone of /b/ only in fast speech between vowels. See Japanese phonology
Limburgish[19][20]		wèlle	[ˈβ̞ɛ̝lə]	'to want'	The example word is from the Maastrichtian dialect.
Lombard		el nava via	[el ˈnaβ̞a ˈβ̞ia]	'he was going away'	Regular pronunciation of /v/ when intervocalic. Used also as an allophone for other positions.
Mapos Buang[2]		wabeenġ	[β̞aˈᵐbɛːɴ]	'kind of yam'	Mapos Buang has both a voiced bilabial fricative and a bilabial approximant as separate phonemes. The fricative is transcribed as {v}, and the approximant as {w}.[2]
Occitan	Gascon	la-vetz	[laˈβ̞ets]	'then'	Allophone of /b/
Ripuarian	Kerkrade[21]	sjwaam	[ʃβ̞aːm]	'smoke'	Weakly rounded; contrasts with /v/.[21]
Spanish[22]		lava	[ˈläβ̞ä]	'lava'	Ranges from close fricative to approximant.[23] Allophone of /b/. See Spanish phonology
Swedish	Central Standard[24]	aber	[ˈɑːβ̞eɾ]	'problem'	Allophone of /b/ in casual speech. See Swedish phonology
Ukrainian[25]		вона	[β̞oˈnɑ]	'she'	An approximant; the most common prevocalic realization of /w/. Can vary with labiodental [ʋ].[25] See Ukrainian phonology

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

Notes

1. See for example Ball, Martin J.; Howard, Sara J.; Miller, Kirk (2018). "Revisions to the extIPA chart". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 48 (2): 155–164. doi:10.1017/S0025100317000147.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
2. Mose Lung Rambok and Bruce Hooley (2010). Central Buang‒English Dictionary (PDF). Summer Institute of Linguistics Papua New Guinea Branch. ISBN 9980 0 3589 7.
3. Picard (1987:364), citing Pope (1966:92)
4. Zhuqing (2002:?)
5. Zhao, Yuan Ren (1928). 現代吳語的研究 "Study on Modern Wu Chinese". 商務印書館. ISBN 9787100086202.
6. Maddieson et al. (1993:34)
7. Ladefoged (2005:156)
8. Krech et al. (2009:108)
9. Sylvia Moosmüller (2007). "Vowels in Standard Austrian German: An Acoustic-Phonetic and Phonological Analysis" (PDF). p. 6. Retrieved March 9, 2013.. This source mentions only intervocalic [β].
10. Cruz-Ferreira (1995:92)
11. Mateus & d'Andrade (2000:11)
12. (Italian) http://www.antoninurubattu.it/rubattu/grammatica-sarda-italiano-sardo.html Archived 2015-01-01 at the Wayback Machine
13. Göksel & Kerslake (2005:6)
14. Merrill (2008:109)
15. Hayward & Hayward (1999:48)
16. Hualde (1991:99–100)
17. Wheeler (2005:10)
18. Okada (1999:118)
19. Gussenhoven & Aarts (1999:155)
20. Peters (2006:117)
21. Stichting Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer (1997:17)
22. Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003:257)
23. Phonetic studies such as Quilis (1981) have found that Spanish voiced stops may surface as spirants with various degrees of constriction. These allophones are not limited to regular fricative articulations, but range from articulations that involve a near complete oral closure to articulations involving a degree of aperture quite close to vocalization
24. Engstrand (2004:167)
25. Žovtobrjux & Kulyk (1965:121–122)

References

• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 25 (2): 90–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005223
• Engstrand, Olle (2004), Fonetikens grunder (in Swedish), Lund: Studenlitteratur, ISBN 91-44-04238-8
• Göksel, Asli; Kerslake, Celia (2005), Turkish: a comprehensive grammar, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415114943
• Gussenhoven, Carlos; Aarts, Flor (1999), "The dialect of Maastricht" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, University of Nijmegen, Centre for Language Studies, 29: 155–166, doi:10.1017/S0025100300006526
• Hayward, Katrina; Hayward, Richard J. (1999), "Amharic", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 45–50, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004874, ISBN 0-521-65236-7
• Hualde, José Ignacio (1991), Basque phonology, New York: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-05655-7
• Krech, Eva Maria; Stock, Eberhard; Hirschfeld, Ursula; Anders, Lutz-Christian (2009), Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch, Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-018202-6
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell
• Maddieson, Ian; Spajić, Siniša; Sands, Bonny; Ladefoged, Peter (1993), "Phonetic structures of Dahalo", in Maddieson, Ian (ed.), UCLA working papers in phonetics: Fieldwork studies of targeted languages, 84, Los Angeles: The UCLA Phonetics Laboratory Group, pp. 25–65
• Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana María; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (2): 255–259, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373
• Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 38 (1): 107–114, doi:10.1017/S0025100308003344
• Mateus, Maria Helena; d'Andrade, Ernesto (2000), The Phonology of Portuguese, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-823581-X
• Okada, Hideo (1999), "Japanese", in International Phonetic Association (ed.), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, pp. 117–119, ISBN 978-0-52163751-0
• Peters, Jörg (2006), "The dialect of Hasselt", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 36 (1): 117–124, doi:10.1017/S0025100306002428
• Picard, Marc (1987), "On the Palatalization and Fricativization of W", International Journal of American Linguistics, 53 (3): 362–365, doi:10.1086/466063
• Pope, Mildred (1966), From Latin to Modern French, Manchester: Manchester University Press
• Quilis, Antonio (1981), Fonética acústica de la lengua española, Gredos
• Stichting Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer (1997) [1987], Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer (2nd ed.), Kerkrade: Stichting Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer, ISBN 90-70246-34-1, archived from the original on 2015-09-19, retrieved 2015-09-09
• Wheeler, Max W (2005), The Phonology Of Catalan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-925814-7
• Zhuqing, Li (2002), Fuzhou Phonology and Grammar, Springfield, VA: Dunwoody Press, ISBN 9781881265931
• Žovtobrjux, M.A.; Kulyk, B.M. (1965), Kurs sučasnoji ukrajins’koji literaturnoji movy. Častyna I., Kiev: Radjans’ka škola

External links

• List of languages with [β] on PHOIBLE