Voiced bilabial implosive

A voiced bilabial implosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɓ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ⟨b_<⟩.

Features

Features of the voiced bilabial implosive:

Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no nasal outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely, and the consonant is a plosive.
Its place of articulation is bilabial, which means it is articulated with both lips.
Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
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 implosive (glottalic ingressive), which means it is produced by pulling air in by pumping the glottis downward. Since it is voiced, the glottis is not completely closed, but allows a pulmonic airstream to escape through it.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Ega^[1]		[ɓá]		'send away'
English	Southern American^[2]	boy	[ɓɔɪ̯]	'boy'	Possible realization of word-initial /b/.^[2] See English phonology
Fula^[3]		[[[Fula orthographies\|fulɓe]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[fulɓe]	'Fulbe person' (g.)
Goemai		[ḅas] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ɓas]	'to fetch'
Hausa		[ɓaɓewa] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ɓaɓɛua]	'quarreling'
Jamaican Patois^[4]		beat	[ɓiːt]	'beat'	Allophone of /b/ in the onset of prominent syllables.
Kalabari^[5]		[ḅá] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ɓá]	'kill'
Khmer		បី	[ɓəj]	'three'
Mono^[6]		[‘balœ] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ɓálə́]	'at'
Seereer-Siin^[7]		[ɓood]		'to crawl'	Contrasts phonemically with voiceless implosive
Sindhi		ٻر	[ɓaˑrʊ]	'child'
Tera^[8]		ɓala	[ɓala]	'to talk'	Contrasts phonemically with palatalized implosive, /ɓʲ/
Tukang Besi		[aɓa]		'previous'
Vietnamese^[9]		[[[Vietnamese alphabet\|bạn]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[ɓan̪˧ˀ˨ʔ]	'you'	In free variation with [ʔb]. See Vietnamese phonology
Zulu		[ubaba] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)	[uˈɓaːɓa]	'my father'

^ Connell, Ahoua & Gibbon (2002:100)
^ ^a ^b Wells (1982:489)
^ Keer (1999:82)
^ Devonish & Harry (2004:456)
^ Harry (2003:113)
^ Olson (2004:233)
^ Mc Laughlin (2005:203)
^ Tench (2007:228)
^ Thompson (1959:458–461)

Connell, Bruce; Ahoua, Firmin; Gibbon, Dafydd (2002), "Ega", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 32 (1): 99–104, doi:10.1017/S002510030200018X
Devonish, H.; Harry, Otelamate G. (2004), "Jamaican phonology", in Kortman, B; Shneider E. W. (eds.), A Handbook of Varieties of English, phonology, vol. 1, Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter, pp. 441–471
Harry, Otelamate G. (2003), "Kalaḅarị-Ịjo", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (1): 113–120, doi:10.1017/S002510030300121X
Keer, Edward (1999), Geminates, The OCP and The Nature of CON, Rutgers University
Mc Laughlin, Fiona (2005), "Voiceless implosives in Seereer-Siin", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 35 (2): 201–214, doi:10.1017/S0025100305002215
Olson, Kenneth S. (2004), "Mono" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (02): 233–238, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001744
Tench, Paul (2007), "Tera", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 37 (1): 228–234, doi:10.1017/s0025100307002952
Thompson, Laurence (1959), "Saigon phonemics", Language, 35 (3): 454–476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232
Wells, John C. (1982), Accents of English, vol. 3: Beyond the British Isles, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-24225-8