Voiceless bilabial fricative

"ɸ" redirects here. For the Greek letter, see Phi (letter). For the Cyrillic letter, see Ef (Cyrillic). For the Armenian letter, see Piwr (letter).

The voiceless bilabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɸ⟩, a Latinised form of the Greek letter Phi.

Voiceless bilabial fricative
ɸ
IPA number	126
Audio sample
source · help
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ɸ
Unicode (hex)	U+0278
X-SAMPA	p\
Braille
Image

Features

Features of the voiceless bilabial fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• 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.
• 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
Ainu[citation needed]		フチ	[ɸu̜tʃi]	'grandmother'
Angor[citation needed]		fi	[ɸi]	'body'
Bengali	Eastern dialects	ফল	[ɸɔl]	'fruit'	Allophone of /f/ in some eastern dialects; regular allophone of /pʰ/ in western dialects
English	Scouse	[example needed]			Allophone of /p/. See British English phonology[1]
Ewe[2]		éƒá	[éɸá]	'he polished'	Contrasts with /f/
Italian	Tuscan[3]	i capitani	[iˌhäɸiˈθäːni]	'the captains'	Intervocalic allophone of /p/.[3] See Italian phonology and Tuscan gorgia.
Itelmen		чуфчуф	[tʃuɸtʃuɸ]	'rain'
Japanese[4]		腐敗 / fuhai	[ɸɯhai]	'decay'	Allophone of /h/ before /ɯ/. See Japanese phonology
Kaingang		fy	[ɸɨ]	'seed'
Korean		후두개 / hudugae	[ɸʷudugɛ]	'epiglottis'	Allophone of /h/ before /u/ and /w/. See Korean phonology
Kwama[citation needed]		[kòːɸɛ́]		'basket'
Māori		whakapapa	[ɸakapapa]	'genealogy'	Now more commonly /f/ due to the influence of English. See Māori phonology.
Nepali		बाफ	[bäɸ]	'vapour'	Allophone of /pʰ/. See Nepali phonology
Odoodee[citation needed]		pagai	[ɸɑɡɑi]	'coconut'
Okinawan		fifaci	[ɸiɸatɕi]	'type of spice'
Spanish	Some dialects [5][6]	fuera	[ˈɸwe̞ɾa̠]	'outside'	Non-standard variant of /f/. See Spanish phonology
	Standard European[7]	pub	[ˈpa̠ɸ̞]	'pub'	An approximant; allophone of /b/ before a pause.[7]
	North-Central Peninsular[8]	abdicar	[a̠ɸðiˈka̠ɾ]	'abdicate'	Allophone of /b/ in the coda. In this dialect, the unvoiced coda obstruents - /p, t, k/ - are realized as fricatives only if they precede a voiced consonant; otherwise, they emerge as stops.
	Southern Peninsular[9]	los vuestros	[lɔh ˈɸːwɛhtːɾɔh]	'yours'	It varies with [βː] in some accents. Allophone of /b/ after /s/.
Shompen[10]		[koɸeoi]		'bench'
Sylheti		ꠙꠥꠀ	[ɸua]	'boy'
Tahitian		ʻōfī	[ʔoːɸiː]	'snake'	Allophone of /f/
Taruma[11]		fwa	[ɸʷa]	'fire'
Turkish	Some speakers[12]	ufuk	[uˈɸʊk]	'horizon'	Allophone of /f/ before rounded vowels and, to a lesser extent, word-finally after rounded vowels.[12] See Turkish phonology
Turkmen		fabrik	[ɸabrik]	'factory'
Yalë		dife	[diɸe]	'village'

See also

• Index of phonetics articles