Everything about Labial-velar Consonant totally explained
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.
To pronounce these, try saying [k,ɡ, ŋ], but close your lips as you'd for [p,b, m]. Then release just as you'd 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 ɡ͡b 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 /bɡ/ and /ɡb/ both distinct from /ɡ͡b/. Ignoring tone, we have:
| Single consonant |
Two-consonant sequence |
| pom |
to pound |
kba |
to dig |
| abu |
a dog |
bɡa |
to beat, to kill |
| aku |
a room |
ak͡pki |
a stomach |
| gom |
to break |
ɡ͡bɡa |
to grind |
| k͡pu |
to die |
kpu |
to kneel |
| g͡bu |
to arrive |
ɡba |
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're 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.
Bilabial clicks are sometimes considered to be labial-velar consonants as well, though the validity of this classification is debated.
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