The voiceless bilabial trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages . The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ ?? ⟩. The X-SAMPA symbol is B\_0

This sound is typologically extremely rare. It occurs in languages such as Para Arara ^[1] and Sercquiais . ^{[ citation needed ]}

Only a few languages contrast voiced and voiceless bilabial trills phonemically ? e.g. Mangbetu of Congo and Ninde of Vanuatu. ^{[2] [3]}

There is also a very rare voiceless alveolar bilabially trilled affricate , [t????] (written ⟨ t?? ⟩ in Everett & Kern) reported from Piraha and from a few words in the Chapacuran languages Wari? and Oro Win . The sound also appears as an allophone of the labialized voiceless alveolar stop /t?/ of Abkhaz and Ubykh , but in those languages it is more often realised by a doubly articulated stop [t?p] . In the Chapacuran languages, [t??] is reported almost exclusively before rounded vowels such as [o] and [y] .

Additionally, Lese has another rare trilled affricate, a labial?velar trilled affricate [k?p??] , which occurs as an allophone of the voiceless labial?velar plosive [k?p] . ^[4]

Features [ edit ]

Features of the bilabial trill:

• Its manner of articulation is trill , which means it is produced by directing air over an articulator so that it vibrates.
• Its place of articulation is bilabial , which means it is articulated with both lips .
• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
• It is an oral consonant , which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the central ? lateral dichotomy does not apply.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic , which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles , as in most sounds.

Occurrence [ edit ]

Notes [ edit ]