fʷː vs β

Voiceless Bilabial Fricative vs Voiced Bilabial Fricative

How these sounds differ

fʷː

Voiceless Bilabial Fricative

Voicing: voiceless
Place: bilabial
Manner: fricative
Class: consonant
In languages: 2 / 500

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Voiced Bilabial Fricative

Voicing: voiced
Place: bilabial
Manner: fricative
Class: consonant
In languages: 53 / 500

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Cross-linguistic distribution

Languages with fʷː

Languages with both

Languages with β

0 languages in our database contrast both sounds as distinct phonemes. Languages that have one but not the other tend to merge them into a single phoneme — meaning speakers of those languages often struggle to hear the distinction when learning a language that contrasts them.

Has fʷː, not β (2)

Moroccan Arabic Afro-Asiatic Amharic Afro-Asiatic

Has β, not fʷː (20)

Cheremis Uralic Pashto Indo-European Chacobo Pano-Tacanan Ocaina Huitotoan Carib Cariban Moxo Arawakan Asháninka Arawakan Quechua Quechuan Mixtec Otomanguean Mazateco Otomanguean Luiseno Uto-Aztecan Tewa Kiowa-Tanoan Atayal Austronesian Kaliai Austronesian Washkuk Sepik Gadsup Nuclear Trans New Guinea Aleut Eskimo-Aleut Inuit Eskimo-Aleut Digueno Cochimi-Yuman NENETS Uralic