Bilabial consonant

The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are:

IPA	Description	Example
		Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
	bilabial nasal	English	man	[mæn]
	voiceless bilabial plosive	English	spin	[spɪn]
	voiced bilabial plosive	English	bed	[bɛd]
	voiceless bilabial fricative	Japanese	富士山 (fujisan)	[ɸuʑisaɴ]	Mount Fuji
	voiced bilabial fricative	Ewe	ɛʋɛ	[ɛ̀βɛ̀]	Ewe
	bilabial approximant	Spanish	lobo	[loβ̞o]	wolf
	bilabial trill	Nias	simbi	[siʙi]	lower jaw
	bilabial ejective	Adyghe	пӀэ	[pʼa]	meat
k͡ʘ ɡ͡ʘ ŋ͡ʘ	bilabial click release (many distinct consonants)	Nǁng	ʘoe	[k͡ʘoe]	meat

Owere Igbo has a six-way contrast among bilabial stops: [p pʰ ɓ̥ b b̤ ɓ]. Approximately 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tlingit, Chipewyan, Oneida, and Wichita.[1]

The extensions to the IPA also define a bilabial percussive ([ʬ]) for striking the lips together (smacking the lips – see percussive consonant). A lip-smack in the non-percussive sense of the lips noisily parting would be [ʬ↓].[2]

The IPA chart shades out bilabial lateral consonants, which is sometimes read as indicating that such sounds are not possible. The fricatives [ɸ] and [β] are often lateral, but since no language makes a distinction for centrality, the allophony is not noticeable.

• Place of articulation
• Index of phonetics articles