Voiced bilabial approximant
| Voiced bilabial fricative | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| β | |||
| IPA number | 127 | ||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity (decimal) | β |
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| Unicode (hex) | U+03B2 | ||
| X-SAMPA | B |
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| Kirshenbaum | B |
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| Braille |
 
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| Sound | |||
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.svg)
| Voiced bilabial approximant | |
|---|---|
| β̞ | |
| Sound | |
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The voiced bilabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨β⟩ (or more properly ⟨ꞵ⟩), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ⟨B⟩. The symbol ⟨β⟩ is the Greek letter beta. This symbol is also sometimes used to represent the bilabial approximant, though that is more clearly written with the lowering diacritic, that is ⟨β̞⟩. Theoretically, it could also be transcribed as an advanced labiodental approximant ⟨ʋ̟⟩, but this symbol is hardly ever, if at all, used so. Very few languages are known to make a phonemic contrast between the voiced bilabial fricative and the bilabial approximant, but the Uto-Aztecan Tarahumara does. The bilabial fricative is diachronically unstable and is likely to shift to [v].
In English, this sound is not used: it can be made by approximating the normal "v" sound, [v], between the lips.
Features of the voiced bilabial fricative:
In the following transcriptions, the undertack diacritic is used to indicate an approximant [β̞].
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