Voiceless bilabial nasal

The voiceless bilabial nasal (stop) is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨m̥⟩, a combination of the letter for the voiced bilabial nasal and a diacritic indicating voicelessness. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is m_0.

Voiceless bilabial nasal
m̥
IPA number	114+402A
Audio sample
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Encoding
X-SAMPA	m_0
Braille

Features

Features of the voiceless bilabial nasal:

• Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Because the consonant is also nasal, the blocked airflow is redirected through the nose.
• 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.
• It is a nasal consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the nose, either exclusively (nasal stops) or in addition to through the mouth.
• Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the central–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
• Its 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

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Aleut[1]		quhmax̂	[qum̥aχ]	'white'	Voiced approximants and nasals may be partly devoiced in contact with a voiceless consonant and at the end of a word.
Alutiiq		keghmarluku	[kəɡm̥aχluku]	'bite it repeatedly'	Contrasts with voiced /m/.
Burmese[2]		မှား/hma:	[m̥á]	'false'
Central Alaskan Yup'ik[3]		pisteḿun	[ˈpistəm̥un]	'to the servant'
English	RP[4]	stop me	[ˈstɒp͡m̥ mɪ]	stop me
Estonian[5]		lehm	[ˈlehm̥]	'cow'	Word-final allophone of /m/ after /t, s, h/.[5] See Estonian phonology
French		prisme	[pχism̥]	'prism'	Allophone of word-final /m/ after voiceless consonants.[6] See French phonology
Hmong	White Hmong	𖬌𖬣𖬵 / Hmoob	[m̥ɔ̃́]	'Hmong'	Contrasts with voiced /m/. In Green Mong, it has merged with /m/.[7]
Icelandic		kempa	[cʰɛm̥pa]	'hero'	Allophonic variation of /m/ before voiceless plosives. Minimally contrastive with /m/ before voiced plosives: kemba [cʰɛmpa] 'to comb'.[8] See Icelandic phonology
Jalapa Mazatec[9]		hma	[m̥a]	'black'	Contrasts with a voiced and a laryngealized bilabial nasal.
Kildin Sami[10]		лēӎӎьк/ljeehmhmk	[lʲeːm̥ʲːk]	'strap'
Muscogee		camhcá:ka	[t͡ʃəm̥t͡ʃɑːɡə]	'bell'	Allophone of /m/ before /h/ when in the same syllable.[11]
Northern Sámi		čáihmi	[ˈt͡ʃaːjːm̥iː]	'freckle'
Ukrainian[12]		ритм/rytm	[rɪt̪m̥]	'rhythm'	Word-final allophone of /m/ after voiceless consonants.[12] See Ukrainian phonology
Washo[13]		Mášdɨmmi	[ˈm̥aʃdɨmmi]	'he's hiding'
Welsh[14]		fy mhen	[və m̥ɛn]	'my head'	Occurs as the nasal mutation of /p/. See Welsh phonology
Xumi	Lower[15]	[m̥ɛ̃˦]		'medicine'	Contrasts with the voiced /m/.[15][16]
	Upper[16]
Yi[17]		ꂓ hmi	[m̥i]	'name'

See also

• Index of phonetics articles
• Voiced bilabial nasal