labiodental

[ley-bee-oh-den-tl]

adjective

1. articulated with the lower lip touching the upper front teeth, as f or v, or, rarely, with the upper lip touching the lower front teeth.

noun

1. a labiodental speech sound.

labiodental

/ ˌleɪbɪəʊˈdɛntəl /

adjective

1. pronounced by bringing the bottom lip into contact or near contact with the upper teeth, as for the fricative (f) in English fat, puff

noun

1. a labiodental consonant

Word History and Origins

Origin of labiodental¹

First recorded in 1660–70; labio- + dental

Example Sentences

And others point out that labiodental sounds have even been found among hunter-gatherers with edge-to-edge bites, like some Yanomami people of South America, who live mostly as isolated hunter-gatherers, fishers and horticulturists.

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To test this hypothesis, they analyzed databases of the world’s consonants and showed contemporary hunter–gatherer languages contain only a fraction of the labiodental sounds that food-producer languages do.

Read more on Scientific American

In particular, it becomes much easier to say “f” and “v,” which linguists call “labiodental” sounds.

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Further analysis found that labiodental consonants could have spread rapidly in languages since the dawn of agriculture, to the point that they are found in half of the 7,000 or so languages still spoken.

Read more on The Guardian

The w in Dutch is mostly labiodental; in the eastern parts before vowels bilabial pronunciation is heard.

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