Voiceless bilabial fricative

"ɸ" redirects here. For the Greek letter, see Phi (letter). For the Cyrillic letter, see Ef (Cyrillic). For the Armenian letter, see Piwr (letter).
Voiceless bilabial fricative
ɸ
IPA number126
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)ɸ
Unicode (hex)U+0278
X-SAMPAp\
Braille

A voiceless bilabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɸ⟩, a Latinized form of the Greek letter Phi.

Features

Features of a voiceless bilabial fricative:

Occurrence

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Ainu フチ [ɸu̜tʃi] 'grandmother' Allophone of /h/ before /u/
Angor fi [ɸi] 'body'
Bengali Eastern dialects ফল [ɸɔl] 'fruit' Allophone of /f/ in some eastern dialects; regular allophone of /pʰ/ in western dialects
Damin fiwi [ɸiwi] 'boomerang'
English Scouse Allophone of /p/. See British English phonology[1]
Ewe[2] éƒá [éɸá] 'he polished' Contrasts with /f/
Italian Tuscan[3] i capitani [iˌhäɸiˈtäːni] 'the captains' Postvocalic allophone of /p/.[3] See Italian phonology and Tuscan gorgia.
Itelmen чуфчуф [tʃuɸtʃuɸ] 'rain'
Japanese[4] 腐敗 / fuhai [ɸɯhai] 'decay' Allophone of /h/ before /ɯ/. See Japanese phonology
Kaingang fy [ɸɨ] 'seed'
Korean 후두개 / hudugae [ɸʷudugɛ] 'epiglottis' Allophone of /h/ before /u/ and /w/. See Korean phonology
Kwama [kòːɸɛ́] 'basket'
Māori whakapapa [ɸakapapa] 'genealogy' Now more commonly /f/ due to the influence of English. See Māori phonology.
Nepali बाफ [bäɸ] 'vapour' Allophone of /pʰ/. See Nepali phonology
Odoodee pagai [ɸɑɡɑi] 'coconut'
Okinawan fifaci [ɸiɸatɕi] 'type of spice'
Spanish Some dialects [5][6] fuera [ˈɸwe̞ɾa̠]ⓘ 'outside' Non-standard variant of /f/. See Spanish phonology
North-Central Peninsular[7] abdicar [a̠ɸðiˈka̠ɾ] 'abdicate' Allophone of /b/ in the coda. In this dialect, the unvoiced coda obstruents - /p, t, k/ - are realized as fricatives only if they precede a voiced consonant; otherwise, they emerge as stops.
Southern Peninsular[8] los vuestros [lɔh ˈɸːwɛhtːɾɔh] 'yours' It varies with [βː] in some accents. Allophone of /b/ after /s/.
Shompen[9] kofeoi [koɸeoi] 'bench'
Sylheti ꠙꠥꠀ/fua [ɸua] 'boy'
Tahitian ʻōfī [ʔoːɸiː] 'snake' Allophone of /f/
Taruma[10] fwa [ɸʷa] 'fire'
Turkish Some speakers[11] ufuk [u̞ˈɸu̞k]ⓘ 'horizon' Allophone of /f/ before rounded vowels and, to a lesser extent, word-finally after rounded vowels.[11] See Turkish phonology
Turkmen fabrik [ɸabrik] 'factory'
Yalë dife [diɸe] 'village'

Voiceless bilabial approximant

Voiceless bilabial approximant
ɸ˕
Audio sample
source · help

A voiceless bilabial approximant is a similar sound with less turbulent airflow. The IPA has no dedicated symbol that represents this sound, but it may be transcribed as ⟨ɸ̞⟩ (a lowered [ɸ]), or equivalently ⟨ɸ˕⟩ (with the obsolete adjacent diacritic) to avoid clash with the ascender and descender.

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Kamasau[12] ngape [ˈŋɑɸ̞e] 'bone' Allophone of the voiceless bilabial phoneme, described by different authors as either /ɸ/ or /p/. In free variation with [b, p, pʰ, p̆, ɸ, ɸ̞], depending on the consonant position and dialect.
Mazatec Mazatlán[13] [ɸ̞ī] 'go' Primary realization of /β̞/ when pre-aspirated.

See also

References

  1. ^ Watson, Kevin (2007). Illustrations of the IPA: Liverpool English (Cambridge University Press ed.). Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37. pp. 351–360.
  2. ^ Ladefoged (2005:156)
  3. ^ a b Hall (1944:75)
  4. ^ Okada (1999:118)
  5. ^ Boyd-Bowman (1953:229)
  6. ^ Cotton & Sharp (1988:15)
  7. ^ "Coda Obstruents and Local Constraint Conjunction in North-Central Peninsular Spanish" (PDF). Retrieved 2019-04-21.
  8. ^ Pérez, Aguilar & Jiménez (1998:225–228)
  9. ^ "The language of the Shom Pen: a language isolate in the Nicobar Islands" (PDF). Mother Tongue. 12: 179–202.
  10. ^ Serke, Anna K. (2022). A description of Taruma phonology (Thesis). Universitat Leiden.
  11. ^ a b Göksel & Kerslake (2005:6)
  12. ^ Holt, Charles; Sanders, Joy (2023). Allophonic Variation in Voiceless Bilabials in Kamasau (PDF). DIAL Conference Proceedings. Dallas: Dallas International University. Retrieved 3 June 2026.
  13. ^ Klint, Ryan David, Non-modal voicing as morphemic features in Íénná, Mazatec of Mazatlán Villa de Flores, SIL International, retrieved 3 June 2026

Sources

  • Boyd-Bowman, Peter (1953), "Sobre la pronunciación del español en el Ecuador", Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 7: 221–233, doi:10.24201/nrfh.v7i1/2.310
  • Cotton, Eleanor Greet; Sharp, John (1988), Spanish in the Americas, Georgetown University Press, ISBN 978-0-87840-094-2
  • Göksel, Asli; Kerslake, Celia (2005), Turkish: a comprehensive grammar, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415114943
  • Hall, Robert A. Jr. (1944). "Italian phonemes and orthography". Italica. 21 (2). American Association of Teachers of Italian: 72–82. doi:10.2307/475860. JSTOR 475860.
  • Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell
  • Okada, Hideo (1999), "Japanese", in International Phonetic Association (ed.), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, pp. 117–119, ISBN 978-0-52163751-0
  • Pérez, Ramón Morillo-Velarde; Aguilar, Rafael Cano; Jiménez, Antonio Narbona (1998), El Español hablado en Andalucía, Editorial Ariel, ISBN 84-344-8225-8
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