Labialization

Labial(-velar)ized with protrusion (rounded lips)
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʷ
Unicode (hex)	U+02B7

Labialized with compression (flat lips)
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ᵝ
Unicode (hex)	U+1D5D

Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Consonants pronounced this way are said to be labialized and are usually transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by affixing a superscript w, Template:Angbr IPA, to the base letter. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve the lips, they are called rounded.

In phonology, "labialization" may also refer to a type of assimilation process.

Labialized consonants

The most common labialized consonants are labialized velars. Most other labialized sounds also have simultaneous velarization, and the process may then be more precisely called labio-velarization. The labialization of bilabial consonants, though generally transcribed with Template:Angbr IPA as if it were labiovelar, is often a protrusion of the lips without velarization of the tongue.

Labialization has been attested with pulmonic, implosive, ejective and click consonants. All places and manners of pulmonic consonants are attested with labialized variants, with the possible exception of the epiglottals.

Occurrence

Labialization is the most widespread secondary articulation in the world's languages. It is phonemically contrastive in Northwest Caucasian (e.g. Adyghe), Athabaskan, and Salishan language families, among others. This contrast is reconstructed also for Proto-Indo-European, the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, and it survives in Latin and some Romance languages. It is also found in the Cushitic and Ethio-Semitic languages.

American English labializes to various degrees.

A few languages, including Arrernte, have contrastive labialized forms for nearly all of their consonants.

In many Salishan languages, such as Klallam, velar consonants only occur in their labialized forms (except /k/, which occurs in some loanwords); however, uvular consonants occur abundantly labialized and unrounded.

Types

Open-labialized

Labiodentalized

Labio-palatalized

Out of 706 language inventories surveyed by Template:Harvcoltxt, labialization occurred most often with velar (42%) and uvular (15%) segments and least often with dental and alveolar segments. With non-dorsal consonants, labialization may include velarization as well. Labialization is not restricted to lip-rounding. The following articulations have either been described as labialization or been found as allophonic realizations of prototypical labialization:

• Labiodental frication, found in Abkhaz
• Labiodentalization is a common idiosyncrasy of English and , and especially of .
• Complete bilabial closure, , found in Abkhaz and Ubykh
• "Labialization" (, , and ) without noticeable rounding (protrusion) of the lips, found in the Iroquoian languages. It may be that they are compressed.
• Rounding without velarization, found in Shona and in the Bzyb dialect of Abkhaz.

Eastern Arrernte has labialization at all places and manners of articulation; this derives historically from adjacent rounded vowels, as is also the case of the Northwest Caucasian languages. Marshallese also has phonemic labialization as a secondary articulation at all places of articulation except for labial consonants and coronal obstruents.

In North America, languages from a number of families have sounds that sound labialized (and vowels that sound rounded) without the participation of the lips. Tillamook is an example.

Similarly to the distinction between the labio-palatal and labio-velar semivowels, some languages exhibit labio-palatalization , rather than labio-velarization .

Prelabialization

In Slovene, sounds can be prelabialized. Furthermore, the change is phonemic and all phonemes have prelabialized pairs (though not all of their allophones can have pairs). Compare Template:Wikt-lang 'stand' and Template:Wikt-lang 'stand up' . The prelabialization part, however, is usually not considered as being part of the same phoneme as prelabialized sound, but rather as an allophone of as it changes depending on the environment, e. g. Template:Wikt-lang 'take' and Template:Wikt-lang 'summarize' . See Slovene phonology for more details.

Transcription

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, protruded labialization is indicated with a raised Template:Angbr IPA modifier , as in . There are also diacritics, respectively , to indicate greater or lesser degrees of rounding. These are normally used with vowels but may occur with consonants. For example, in Hupa, an Athabaskan language, voiceless velar fricatives distinguish three degrees of labialization, transcribed either or .

The VoQS system has two additional symbols for degrees of rounding, originally introduced as part of the extensions to the IPA: Spread and open-rounded (as in English and French). It also has a symbol for labiodentalized sounds, , which the IPA Handbook (1999) states may also be used for protruded labialization if Template:Angbr IPA is additionally specifying simultaneous velarization.

If precision is desired, the Abkhaz and Ubykh articulations may be transcribed with the appropriate fricative or trill raised as a diacritic: , , , .

For simple labialization, Template:Harvcoltxt resurrected an old IPA symbol, , which would be placed above a letter with a descender such as . However, their chief example is Shona sv and zv, which they transcribe and but which actually seem to be whistled sibilants, without necessarily being labialized. Another possibility is to use the IPA diacritic for rounding, distinguishing for example the labialization in English soon and swoon. The open rounding of English is also unvelarized.

Assimilation

Labialization also refers to a specific type of assimilatory process where a given sound become labialized due to the influence of neighboring labial sounds. For example, may become in the environment of , or may become in the environment of or .

In the Northwest Caucasian languages as well as some Australian languages rounding has shifted from the vowels to the consonants, producing a wide range of labialized consonants and leaving in some cases only two phonemic vowels. This appears to have been the case in Ubykh and Eastern Arrernte, for example. The labial vowel sounds usually still remain, but only as allophones next to the now-labial consonant sounds.

List of labialized consonants

Type		Phone	IPA	Languages
Stop	plain	protruded voiceless bilabial stop		Chaha, Ibaloi, Paha, Eastern Arrernte, Soga
		protruded voiced bilabial stop		Chaha, Ibaloi, Paha, Mayo, Yaqui
		labzd voiceless dental stop		Soga (marginal)
		labzd voiced dental stop		Eastern Arrernte, Soga
		labzd voiceless alveolar stop		Archi, Abkhaz, Lao, Paha, Ubykh, Eastern Arrernte, Soga
		labzd voiced alveolar stop		Archi, Abkhaz, Gua, Ubykh, Soga
		labzd voiceless retroflex stop		Eastern Arrernte
		labzd voiceless alveolo-palatal stop		Eastern Arrernte
		labzd voiceless palatal stop		Medumba
		labzd voiced palatal stop		Medumba
		labzd voiceless velar stop		Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Halkomelem, Kabardian, Taos, Chipewyan, Hadza, Gwichʼin, Tlingit, Akan, Nez Perce, Archi, Cantonese, Wariʼ, Chaha, Dahalo, Hausa, Igala, Igbo, Lao, Latin, Nahuatl, Nawat, Okinawan, Ossetic, Paha, Portuguese, Thai, Tigrinya, Hiw, Ubykh, Bearlake Slavey, Breton, Gothic, Eastern Arrernte
		labzd voiced velar stop		Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Akan, Archi, Chaha, Dahalo, Hausa, Okinawan, Oowekyala, Ossetic, Hadza, Ibaloi, Igala, Igbo, Gwichʼin, Kabardian, Paha, Portuguese, Tigrinya, Ubykh, Breton, Yoruba, Gothic
		labzd voiceless uvular stop		Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Kabardian, Ossetic, Paha, Tlingit, Nez Perce, Ubykh
		labzd pharyngealized voiceless uvular stop		Archi, Ubykh
		labzd voiced uvular stop		Oowekyala, Kwak'wala, Tsakhur
		labzd glottal stop		Adyghe, Kabardian, Lao, Tlingit
	prenasalized	protruded voiceless bilabial stop		Soga
		protruded voiced bilabial stop		Tamambo, Eastern Arrernte, North Teke, Soga (marginal)
		labzd voiced dental stop		Eastern Arrernte, Soga
		labzd voiceless alveolar stop		Soga
		labzd voiced alveolar stop		Eastern Arrernte, Soga
		labzd voiced alveolo-palatal stop		Eastern Arrernte
		labzd voiced retroflex stop		Eastern Arrernte
		labzd voiceless palatal stop		Medumba
		labzd voiced palatal stop		Medumba
		labzd voiceless velar stop		North Teke, Soga
		labzd voiced velar stop		Eastern Arrernte, North Teke, Soga
	labial–velar	protruded voiceless labio-velar stop		Dorig, Mwotlap
		protruded voiced labial–velar stop		Nizaa, Volow
Affricate	sibilant	labzd voiceless alveolar affricate		Adyghe, Archi, Lezgian, Tsakhur
		labzd voiced alveolar affricate		Adyghe, Dahalo, North Teke
		labzd voiceless postalveolar affricate		Archi, Abaza, Adyghe, Paha, Aghul, German
		labzd voiced postalveolar affricate		Abaza, Aghul, Tsakhur, German
		labzd voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate		Abkhaz, Akan, Gua, Ubykh
		labzd voiced alveolo-palatal affricate		Abkhaz, Akan, Ubykh
	non-sibilant	labzd voiceless velar affricate		Navajo
		labzd voiceless uvular affricate		Kabardian, Lillooet
	lateral	labzd voiceless velar lateral affricate		Archi
	prenasalized	labzd voiceless postalveolar affricate		North Teke
		labzd voiced postalveolar affricate		North Teke
Fricative	sibilant	labzd voiceless alveolar sibilant		Archi, Lao, Lezgian, Soga
		labzd voiced alveolar sibilant		Archi, Tsakhur, Lezgian, Soga
		labzd voiceless postalveolar sibilant		Archi, Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Paha, Aghul, Ubykh
		labzd voiced postalveolar sibilant		Archi, Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Aghul, Ubykh
		labzd voiceless retroflex sibilant		Bzhedug
		labzd voiced retroflex sibilant		Bzhedug
		labzd voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant		Abkhaz, Ubykh
		labzd voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant		Abkhaz, Ubykh
	non-sibilant	protruded voiceless bilabial fricative		Okinawan, Taruma
		protruded voiced bilabial fricative		Tamambo, Soga (contrasts with the labiodental)
		labzd voiceless labiodental fricative		Hadza, Chaha, Gua, Soga
		labzd voiced labiodental fricative		Soga (contrasts with the bilabial), Chichewa
		labzd voiceless dental fricative		Paha
		labzd voiced dental fricative		Paha
		labzd voiceless palatal fricative		Akan
		labzd voiceless velar fricative		Abaza, Adyghe, Avestan, Chaha, Halkomelem, Kabardian, Oowekyala, Taos, Navajo, Tigrinya, Lillooet, Tlingit
		labzd voiced velar fricative		Abaza, Navajo, Lillooet, Gwichʼin, possibly Proto-Indo-European
		labzd voiceless uvular fricative		Abkhaz, Adyghe, Archi, Halkomelem, Kabardian, Lillooet, Tlingit, Wariʼ, Chipewyan, Oowekyala, Ossetic, Ubykh
		labzd pharyngealized voiceless uvular fricative		Abkhaz, Archi, Ubykh
		labzd voiced uvular fricative		Abkhaz, Adyghe, Chipewyan, Kabardian, Ubykh
		labzd pharyngealized voiced uvular fricative		Archi, Ubykh
		labzd voiceless pharyngeal fricative		Abaza, Abkhaz
		labzd voiced pharyngeal fricative		Abaza, Lillooet
	pseudo-fricative	labzd voiceless glottal fricative		Akan, Tlingit, Tsakhur, Gothic, Gua
	lateral	labzd voiceless alveolar lateral fricative		Dahalo
		labzd voiceless velar lateral fricative		Archi
	prenasalized	labzd voiced labiodental fricative		Soga (marginal)
		labzd voiceless alveolar fricative		Soga
		labzd voiced alveolar fricative		Soga (marginal)
Nasal	plain	protruded bilabial nasal		Adyghe, Chaha, Paha, Tamambo, Eastern Arrernte, Soga
		labzd dental nasal		Eastern Arrernte, Soga
		labzd alveolar nasal		Eastern Arrernte, Soga
		labzd retroflex nasal		Eastern Arrernte
		labzd alveolo-palatal nasal		Eastern Arrernte
		labzd palatal nasal		Akan, North Teke
		labzd velar nasal		Akan, Avestan, Lao, Hiw, Igala, Eastern Arrernte
		protruded labial-velar nasal		Dorig, Gua, Mwotlap
	pre-stopped	protruded bilabial nasal		Eastern Arrernte
		labzd dental nasal		Eastern Arrernte
		labzd alveolar nasal		Eastern Arrernte
		labzd retroflex nasal		Eastern Arrernte
		labzd alveolo-palatal nasal		Eastern Arrernte
		labzd velar nasal		Eastern Arrernte
Flap/tap		labzd alveolar tap		Mishmi, Eastern Arrernte
		labzd alveolar lateral flap		Soga
Trill		labzd alveolar trill		Marshallese
Approximant	lateral	labzd dental lateral approximant		Eastern Arrernte
		labzd alveolar lateral approximant		Lao, Eastern Arrernte, Gua
		labzd retroflex lateral approximant		Eastern Arrernte
		labzd alveolo-palatal lateral approximant		Eastern Arrernte
	median	labzd labiodental approximant		Russian
		labialized palatal approximant		Abkhaz, Akan, French, Mandarin, Paha, Eastern Arrernte
		compressed labio-velar approximant (voiced)		Japanese
		protruded labio-velar approximant (voiced)		widespread; in nearly every above-mentioned language, as well as e.g. Arabic, English, Korean, Vietnamese
		voiceless labio-velar approximant		certain dialects of English
		nasalized labio-velar approximant		Polish, Portuguese
		nasalized voiceless labio-velar approximant		Nemi
		labzd postalveolar approximant		many dialects of English Eastern Arrernte
		labzd retroflex approximant
Ejective		protruded bilabial ejective		Adyghe
		labzd alveolar ejective		Abkhaz, Adyghe, Ubykh
		labzd velar ejective		Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Archi, Bearlake Slavey, Chipewyan, Halkomelem, Kabardian, Ossetic, Tlingit, Ubykh
		labzd postalveolar ejective fricative		Adyghe
		labzd uvular ejective		Abaza, Abkhaz, Archi, Halkomelem, Hakuchi, Tlingit, Ubykh
		labzd pharyngealized uvular ejective		Archi, Ubykh
		labzd alveolar ejective affricate		Archi, Khwarshi
		labzd alveolar lateral ejective affricate		Khwarshi
		labzd postalveolar ejective affricate		Abaza, Archi, Khwarshi
		labzd retroflex ejective affricate		allophonic in Adyghe
		labzd alveolo-palatal ejective affricate		Abkhaz, Ubykh
		labzd velar lateral ejective affricate		Archi
		labzd velar ejective fricative		Tlingit
		labzd uvular ejective fricative		Tlingit
Click		labzd tenuis dental click		Xhosa (tenuis or ejective), Yeyi
		labzd tenuis alveolar click		Xhosa (tenuis or ejective), Yeyi
		labzd tenuis alveolar click		Xhosa (tenuis or ejective)
		labzd aspirated dental click		Xhosa, Yeyi
		labzd aspirated alveolar click		Xhosa, Yeyi
		labzd aspirated lateral click		Xhosa, Yeyi
		labzd nasal dental click		Xhosa, Yeyi
		labzd nasal alveolar click		Xhosa, Yeyi
		labzd nasal lateral click		Xhosa, Yeyi
		labzd voiced dental click		Xhosa (voiced aspirated)
		labzd voiced alveolar click		Xhosa (voiced aspirated), Yeyi
		labzd voiced lateral click		Xhosa (voiced aspirated), Yeyi
		labzd glottalized nasal alveolar click		Yeyi
		labzd breathy nasal dental click		Xhosa
		labzd breathy nasal alveolar click		Xhosa
		labzd breathy nasal lateral click		Xhosa

Note that labialized palatal clicks are not attested in Yeyi and are not reconstructed for Proto-Kxʼa. Xhosa also has prenasalized tenuis/ejective and aspirated clicks, which also occur labialized (nkqw, nkxw, nchw, nqhw, nxhw).

See also

• Labio-palatalization (◌ᶣ)

Bibliography

• Crowley, Terry (1997). An Introduction to Historical Linguistics (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
• Ruhlen, Merritt (1976). A Guide to the Languages of the World. Stanford University Press.

• Yanushevskaya, Irena; Bunčić, Daniel (2015). "Russian". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 45 (2): 221–228. doi:10.1017/S0025100314000395.