Bilabialvelar

Bilabialvelar refers to a type of consonant sound produced by articulating at two places simultaneously: the lips and the soft palate. This means that the lips are brought together, as in a bilabial sound like "p" or "b", while the back of the tongue is raised to touch the soft palate, similar to the velar articulation of sounds like "k" or "g".

The most common example of a bilabialvelar consonant in human languages is the voiced stop [ɡ͡b]. This sound is found in several West African languages, such as Ewe, Yoruba, and Akan. In these languages, [ɡ͡b] is a distinct phoneme, meaning it can differentiate words. For instance, in Ewe, the word for "fish" might be pronounced with a [ɡ͡b] sound, distinguishing it from words with separate [ɡ] and [b] sounds.

The voiceless counterpart, [k͡p], is also a bilabialvelar sound and occurs in many of the same languages as [ɡ͡b]. It is produced with the same dual articulation but without vocal cord vibration. Both [ɡ͡b] and [k͡p] are considered complex consonants due to their simultaneous articulation. Phonetically, they are transcribed using a tie-bar under the two symbols, indicating they function as a single sound. The existence of these sounds highlights the diversity of human speech sound production.