A voiceless bilabial trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . Some sources use a para-IPA symbol to transcribe this sound.
This sound is typologically extremely rare. It occurs in languages such as Pará Arára. Only a few languages contrast voiced and voiceless bilabial trills phonemically – e.g. Mangbetu and Dongo of DR Congo and Ninde of Vanuatu.Linguist Wins Symbolic Victory for 'Labiodental Flap'. NPR (2005-12-17). Retrieved on 2010-12-08.LINGUIST List 8.45: Bilabial trill. Linguistlist.org. Retrieved on 2010-12-08.
Features Features of a bilabial trill:
Occurrence Plain Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Ahamb [ŋãˈʙ̥̍s] 'it foams' Contrasts . Neverver 'fire, firewood' Allophone of /p/ before /u/ Pará Arára 'to throw away' Dongo ppo̍ppo̍-kó 'wings' Contrasts with and ; has allophone .
Prestopped trills and stops with trill release
There is also a very rare voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental or alveolar stop, (written in Everett & Kern) reported from a few words in the Chapacuran languages Wariʼ, Itene (More), and Oro Win, as well as Sangtam, a Naga language. The sound also appears as an allophone of the labialized voiceless alveolar stop of Abkhaz and Ubykh, but in those languages it is more often realised by a doubly articulated stop . In the Chapacuran languages, is reported almost exclusively before rounded vowels such as and .
Additionally, the Efe dialect of Lese has a doubly articulated labial–velar with trilled release , which occurs as an allophone of the voiceless labial–velar plosive .
In some languages, the trill may be voiced, particularly when syllabic; see .
Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Itene 'toad' PhonemicLese Efe 'head' Allophone of . Oro Win'small boy' Phonemic. Noted as 'a bilabial trill, preceded by a dental stop, forming a single uni[t]' SangtamCoupe (2015) "Prestopped bilabial trills in Sangtam", Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Glasgow, 10–14 August 2015 'plate' Contrasts aspirated and unaspirated , noted as 'prestopped trills'. The trill in the unaspirated consonant is typically voiced as when word-medial. Ubykh 'Ubykh language' Allophone of . See Ubykh phonology Wariʼ 'chicken' Occurs only before and , appearing almost exclusively in older speakers; allophonic with in some dialects
Notes