phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...

and

phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

, a bilabial stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with both lips (hence

bilabial In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips. Frequency Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tling ...

), held tightly enough to block the passage of air (hence a

stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...

). The most common sounds are the stops and , as in English ''pit'' and ''bit'', and the voiced nasal . More generally, several kinds are distinguished: * ,

voiceless bilabial plosive The voiceless bilabial plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in most Speech communication, spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is p. F ...

* ,

voiced bilabial plosive The voiced bilabial plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is b. The voiced bilabial stop o ...

* ,

voiced bilabial nasal The voiced bilabial nasal is a type of consonantal sound which has been observed to occur in about 96% of spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is m. ...

* , voiceless bilabial nasal * , voiced bilabial implosive * , bilabial ejective (rare) * or ,

voiceless bilabial implosive The voiceless bilabial implosive is a rare consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is or . A dedicated IPA letter, , was withdrawn in 1993. Features Featur ...

(very rare)

References

{{IPA navigation Bilabial stops