Labial-velar consonant

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Places of articulation

Labial

Bilabial

Labial-velar

Labial-alveolar

Labiodental

Bidental

Coronal

Linguolabial

Interdental

Dental

Alveolar

Apical

Laminal

Postalveolar

Alveolo-palatal

Retroflex

Dorsal

Palatal

Labial-palatal

Velar

Uvular

Uvular-epiglottal

Radical

Pharyngeal

Epiglotto-pharyngeal

Epiglottal

Glottal

This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help]

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Labial-velar consonants are doubly articulated at the velum and the lips. They are sometimes called "labiovelar consonants", a term which can also refer to labialized velars, such as the approximant [w].

Truly doubly articulated labial-velars occur as plosives and nasal stops in the majority of languages in West and Central Africa, and are relatively common in the eastern end of New Guinea. They include [k͡p, g͡b, ŋ͡m]. The Yélî Dnye language of Rossel Island, Papua New Guinea, has both labial-velars and labial-alveolar consonants. Labial velar unvoiced plosives and nasals also occur in Vietnamese, albeit only at the end of words.

IPA	Description	Example
		Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
k͡p	voiceless labial-velar plosive	Logba	ò-kpàyɔ̀	[ò-k͡pàjɔ̀]	'God'
g͡b	voiced labial-velar plosive	Ewe	Ewegbe	[ɛβɛg͡be]	'the Ewe language'
ŋ͡m	labial-velar nasal	Vietnamese	cung	[kuŋ͡m]	'sector'

To pronounce these, try saying [k, g, ŋ], but close your lips as you would for [p, b, m]. Then release just as you would do to produce these sounds. Note that while 90% of the occlusion overlaps, the onset of the velar occurs slightly before that of the labial, and the release of the labial occurs slightly after that of the velar, so that the preceding vowel sounds like it's followed by a velar, while the following vowel sounds like it's following a labial. Thus the order of the symbols in k͡p and g͡b is motivated by the phonetic details of these sounds.

These sounds are clearly single consonants rather than consonant clusters. The Eggon language, for example, contrasts these possibilities, with /bg/ and /gb/ both distinct from /g͡b/. Ignoring tone, we have:

Single consonant		Two-consonant sequence
pom	to pound	kba	to dig
abu	a dog	bga	to beat, to kill
aku	a room	ak͡pki	a stomach
gom	to break	g͡bga	to grind
k͡pu	to die	kpu	to kneel
g͡bu	to arrive	gba	to divide

For transcribing these sounds, occasionally ligatures will be seen instead of digraphs with a tie bar:

Note that although such symbols are readily understood, they are not sanctioned by the IPA, and have no Unicode values. They can, however, be specified as the way an OpenType font displays gb and kp digraphs.

Labial-velar plosives also occur as ejective [k͡p’] and implosive [ɠɓ] (the tie bar has been removed for legibility). There may be labial-velar approximants in languages like Japanese; see labiovelar consonant. The only other labial-velar consonants are the velar bilabial clicks.

[edit] See also

• Place of articulation
• List of phonetics topics

Consonants (List, table)	See also: IPA, Vowels
Pulmonics Bilabial Lab'den. Dental Alveolar Postalv. Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn. Epiglottal Glottal Non-pulmonics and other symbols Nasals m ɱ n̪ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ Clicks  ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ Plosives p b p̪ b̪ t̪ d̪ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Implo­­sives  ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ Fricatives  ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Ejec­­tives  pʼ tʼ kʼ qʼ sʼ Approximants  ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ Affricates  t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ t͡ɕ d͡ʑ t͡ʂ d͡ʐ t͡ɬ Trills ʙ r • ʀ • Other laterals  ɺ ɫ Flaps & Taps • ѵ ɾ ɽ • Co-articulated fricatives  ɕ ʑ ɧ Lat. Fricatives ɬ ɮ • • • Co-articulated approximants  ʍ w ɥ Lat. Appr'mants l ɭ ʎ ʟ Co-articulated stops  k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m
This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged impossible.