In phonetics, the voiced labiodental flap is a speech sound found primarily in languages of Central Africa, such as Kera and Mangbetu. It has also been reported in the

Austronesian Austronesian may refer to: *The Austronesian languages *The historical Austronesian peoples The Austronesian peoples, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples in Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, M ...

language Sika. It is one of the few non- rhotic flaps. The sound begins with the lower lip placed behind the upper teeth. The lower lip is then flipped outward, striking the upper teeth in passing.

Symbol

The symbol in the

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

that represents this sound is , which resembles Cyrillic izhitsa, , but is composed of a V and the hook of the flap . In 2005, the International Phonetic Association, responding to Kenneth Olson's request for its adoption, voted to include a symbol for this sound, and selected a ''v with a right hook'', that is, a combination of + . As of version 5.1.0, the Unicode character set encodes this character at U+2C71 (ⱱ). In earlier literature, it is often transcribed by a ''v'' modified by the

extra-short The International Phonetic Alphabet uses a breve to indicate a speech sound (usually a vowel) with extra-short duration. That is, is a very short vowel with the quality of . An example from English is the short schwa of the word ''police'' . Th ...

diacritic, , following a 1989 recommendation of the International Phonetic Association. Another historic symbol for this sound was v with curl , which had been employed in articles from the School of Oriental and African Studies, by Joseph Greenberg, and others.

Features

Features of the voiced labiodental flap: * Its

manner of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the manner of articulation is the configuration and interaction of the articulators (speech organs such as the tongue, lips, and palate) when making a speech sound. One parameter of manner is ''stricture,'' that is, h ...

is flap, which normally means it is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that the tongue makes very brief contact. In this case, being a non- rhotic consonant, the flap is made with the lower lip. * Its place of articulation is dental, which means it is articulated behind upper front teeth.

Occurrence

The labiodental flap is found primarily in Central Africa, in as many as a few hundred languages found in the

Chadic The Chadic languages form a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken in parts of the Sahel. They include 150 languages spoken across northern Nigeria, southern Niger, southern Chad, the Central African Republic, and northern Cam ...

family (Margi, Tera), Ubangian (Ngbaka, Ma'bo, Sera), Mbum (eg

Kare Kare or KARE may refer to: * Kare (Žitorađa), a village in Serbia * Kare language, several languages with the name * Kare (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) * Kare Kauks (born 1961), Estonian singer * Kåre or Kaare, ...

Central Sudanic Central Sudanic is a family of about sixty languages that have been included in the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family. Central Sudanic languages are spoken in the Central African Republic, Chad, South Sudan, Uganda, Congo (DRC), Nigeria and ...

(Mangbetu, Kresh), and Bantoid (Ngwe, some Shona dialects). It is extremely rare outside Africa, though it has been reported from Sika in

Flores Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Including the Komodo Islands off its west coast (but excluding the Solor Archipelago to the east of Flores), the land area is 15,530.58 km2, and th ...

. The

bilabial flap The voiced bilabial flap is an uncommon non- rhotic flap. It is usually, and perhaps always, an allophone of the labiodental flap, though it is the preferred allophone in a minority of languages such as Banda and some of its neighbors. In Mono ...

is a variant of the labiodental flap in several languages, including

Mono Mono may refer to: Common meanings * Infectious mononucleosis, "the kissing disease" * Monaural, monophonic sound reproduction, often shortened to mono * Mono-, a numerical prefix representing anything single Music Performers * Mono (Japanese b ...

. This sound involves striking the upper lip rather than the upper teeth. The two sounds are not known to contrast in any language; the term labial flap can be used as a broader description encompassing both sounds. In Sika, the flap is heard in careful pronunciation, but it may also be realized as a

voiced labiodental stop The voiced labiodental plosive or stop is a consonant sound produced like a , but with the lower lip contacting the upper teeth, as in . This can be represented in the IPA as . A separate symbol that is sometimes seen, especially in Bantu linguis ...

, , or an affricate. It contrasts with both a bilabial and a labiodental fricative:

Notes

References

* * * * * * *

External links

* * Olson and Hajek, 2001
'The Geographic and Genetic Distribution of the Labial Flap'

A Crosslinguistic Lexicon of the Labial Flap
(has video & sound files)

(has information on the labiodental flap) {{IPA navigation Tap and flap consonants Labiodental consonants Phonetic transcription symbols Pulmonic consonants