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Voiceless Bilabial Plosive




The voiceless bilabial plosive is a type of Consonant al sound used in many Spoken Language s. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is p. The voiceless bilabial plosive in English is spelled with 'p', as in ''pit'' or ''speed''.

is missing from about 10% of languages that have a . (See Voiced Velar Plosive for another such gap.) This is an Areal Feature of the "circum-Saharan zone" (Africa north of the equator, including the Arabian peninsula). It is not known how old this areal feature is, and whether it might be a recent phenomenon due to Arabic as a prestige language (Arabic lost its {Link without Title} in prehistoric times), or whether Arabic was itself affected by a more ancient areal pattern. It is found in other areas as well; for example, Proto-Celtic is reconstructed as having but no .

Nonetheless, the sound is very common cross-linguistically. Most languages have at least a plain [p , and some distinguish more than one variety. Many India n languages, such as Hindi , have a two-way contrast between Aspirated and plain [p].


FEATURES


Features of the voiceless bilabial plosive:



VARIETIES OF THE VOICELESS BILABIAL PLOSIVE



IN ARABIC


Arabic has no original Semitic [p (as attested to in Akkadian) having become in prehistoric times. Native speakers of Arabic usually render foreign [p as [b] in both speech and writing, so that the Greek name Paulus becomes Arabic Bolus, for example.


IN ENGLISH


English has both aspirated and plain {Link without Title} , but they are Allophone s.

When occurs at the beginning of a word or a Stressed Syllable , like in ''print'', ''support'', or ''potato'', then it is always aspirated. When it occurs at the beginning of an unstressed syllable that isn't at the beginning of a word, like in ''occupant'', ''vapid'', or ''keeper'', then it is always unaspirated. When [p occurs in a Consonant Cluster following like in ''spin'', ''sprain'', or ''suspend'', then it is always unaspirated. When it occurs at the end of a word, like in ''tip'', ''wasp'', or ''telescope'', then it is usually unaspirated, and if the word is at the end of an Utterance , then the [p is often unreleased.


IN GEORGIAN


Georgian has aspirated and ejective {Link without Title} . They are distinct phonemes, not allophones. Aspirated p is spelled with ფ. Ejective p is spelled with პ .


IN GERMAN


In German , plain is an allophone of voiced [b , while the phoneme written as ''p'' corresponds to aspirated This is not the case in all German dialects, however, and nor [pʰ does not exist in Austro-Bavarian .


IN GREEK


Ancient Greek had plain and aspirated phonemes, written pi (π) and phi (φ) respectively. The aspirated form developed into [f by Hellenistic times, perhaps earlier. In reading ancient Greek, both in Greece and elsewhere, φ is commonly pronounced [f].

In standard Modern Greek , there is only (π); φ is pronounced [f .


SEE ALSO