Brian O’Nolan

The bilabial ejective fricative is a rare type of consonantal sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɸʼ⟩.

Features of the bilabial ejective fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• Its place of articulation is bilabial, which means it is articulated with both lips.
• 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.
• The airstream mechanism is ejective (glottalic egressive), which means the air is forced out by pumping the glottis upward.

• List of phonetic topics

• List of languages with [ɸʼ] on PHOIBLE