labiodentální

Labiodental refers to a class of consonants produced with the lower lip against the upper teeth. This place of articulation lies at the border between labi- and dental articulations. Labiodental consonants are contrasted with bilabial (both lips) and with dental (tongue against teeth) sounds.

Across the world's languages, the most common labiodental sounds are the fricatives /f/ and /v/. The voiceless /f/ is produced with no vocal fold vibration, while /v/ is voiced. These fricatives are found in many language inventories and can occur in various phonological environments, including syllable starts, middles, or ends, and in loanwords.

Less common are other labiodental consonants. The nasal /ɱ/ is produced by the lower lip contacting the upper teeth and may appear as a separate phoneme in some languages or as an allophone of /m/ in the context before labiodentals. The approximant /ʋ/ is a semivocalic sound that blends into /v/ and occurs in a minority of languages as a phoneme or allophone.

Labiodentals are relatively widespread cross-linguistically and are typically easier to articulate for many speakers because the teeth provide a stable contact point and the lower lip is prominent. They are represented in the IPA with symbols f, v, ɱ, and ʋ, among others.