Labiodental nasal

The labiodental nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ɱ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is F. The IPA symbol is a lowercase letter m with a leftward hook protruding the from the lower right of the letter.

The labiodental nasal is pronounced very similarly to the bilabial nasal [m], except instead of the lips touching each other, the lower lip touches the upper teeth, or sometimes vice-versa. The position of the lips and teeth is the same as for the production of the other labiodental consonants, like [f] and [v].

Features

Features of the labiodental nasal:

• Its manner of articulation is plosive or stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
• Its place of articulation is labiodental which means it is articulated with the lower lips and the upper teeth, or vice-versa.
• Its phonation type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
• It is a nasal consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the nose.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

In English

The labiodental nasal is fairly uncommon in English, and where it occurs it is an allophone of m. It is the sound that pronounced when an m is followed by f or v, as in comfort or circumvent.

In other languages

German

In colloquial German speech, the labiodental nasal is an allophone of n in words where "n" is followed by "f", such as fūnf [fʏɱf]. While this is not considered "Standard German", it is a very common pronunciation.

See also

• List of phonetics topics