Voiceless bilabial implosive

A voiceless bilabial implosive is a rare consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is or theoretically. A dedicated IPA letter,, was retired in 1993.

Features

Features of a voiceless bilabial implosive:

Occurrence

A rare and evidently unstable sound, is found in the Serer of Senegal and in the Owere dialect of Igbo in Nigeria. It can also be found in Ngiti in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is also found in multiple Mayan languages, such as Kaqchikel, Mam, and Akatek.

Works cited

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