Voiced bilabial nasal

The voiced bilabial nasal is a type of consonant. It is used in almost all spoken languages. The letter for this sound in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ⟨m⟩. The X-SAMPA symbol for this sound is ⟨m⟩. The English language has this sound, and it is the sound represented by "m" in map and rum.

Bilabial nasal
m
IPA number	114
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	m
Unicode (hex)	U+006D
X-SAMPA	m

"Bilabial nasal" redirects here. For the voiceless consonant, see Voiceless bilabial nasal.

Nearly all languages contain this sound. A few languages (for example, Mohawk) do not often use this sound.

Features

• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic. It means that we produce this sound by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.
• Its phonation is voiced. It means that the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• We produce it at bilabial. It means that we produce this sound with both lips.
• It is a nasal consonant. It means that air is allowed to escape through the nose, either exclusively (nasal stops) or in addition to through the mouth.

Examples

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning
Arabic	Standard	مطابخcode: ar is deprecated	[mɑˈtˤɑːbiχ]	'kitchens'
Catalan		marecode: ca is deprecated	[ˈmaɾə]	'mother'
Chinese	Cantonese	晚code: zh is deprecated /maan5	[maːn˩˧]	'night'
	Mandarin	母親code: zh is deprecated /mǔqīn	[mu˨˩ tɕʰin˥]	'mother'
Dutch		mondcode: nl is deprecated	[mɔnt]	'mouth'
English		himcode: en is deprecated	[hɪm]	'him'
Finnish		minäcode: fi is deprecated	[minæ]	'I'
French		mangercode: fr is deprecated	[mɑ̃ʒe]	'to eat'
Georgian		სამიcode: ka is deprecated	[ˈsɑmi]	'three'
Greek		μάζαcode: el is deprecated /maza	[ˈmaza]	'clump'
Hawaiian		makacode: haw is deprecated	[maka]	'eye'
Indonesian		masukcode: id is deprecated	[ˈmasuʔ]	'enter'
Italian		mammacode: it is deprecated	[ˈmamma]	'mamma'
Japanese		乾杯/kampai	[kampai]	'a toast'
Malay		malamcode: ms is deprecated	[malam]	'night'
Malayalam		കമ്മിcode: ml is deprecated	[kəmmi]	'shortage'
Polish		masacode: pl is deprecated	[ˈmasa]	'mass'
Portuguese		matocode: pt is deprecated	[ˈmatu]	'bush'
Russian		мужcode: ru is deprecated	[muʂ]	'husband'
Spanish		grumetecode: es is deprecated	[ɡɾuˈme̞te̞]	'cabin boy'
Vietnamese		muốicode: vi is deprecated	[mwoj˧ˀ˥]	'salt'
Zapotec	Tilquiapan	mancode: mis is deprecated	[maŋ]	'animal'

Voiced Bilabial Nasal Media

• 

  A schematic mid-sagittal section of an articulation of a voiced bilabial nasal [m].