Voiceless labial–velar plosive

The voiceless labial–velar plosive or stop is a type of

The voiceless labial–velar plosive is found in Vietnamese and various languages in West and Central Africa. In Yoruba it is written with a simple ⟨p⟩.

Features

Features of the voiceless labial–velar stop:

• Its
  occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no nasal outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely, and the consonant is a plosive
  .
• Its place of articulation is labial–velar, which means it is simultaneously articulated with the lips and with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the velum). The dorsal closure is made and released slightly before the labial closure, but they overlap for most of their duration.
• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• The
  intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles
  , as in most sounds.

Some languages, especially in Papua New Guinea and in Vanuatu, combine this voiceless labial–velar stop with a labial–velar approximant release, hence [k͡pʷ]. Thus Mwotlap (Banks Islands, north Vanuatu) has [k͡pʷɪlɣɛk] ('my father-in-law').^[10]

In the Banks Islands languages which have it, the phoneme /k͡pʷ/ is written ⟨q⟩ in local orthographies. In other languages of

• List of phonetics topics
• Doubly articulated consonant

Notes