Labialisation: Encyclopedia II - Labialisation - Where found

Labialisation - Where found

Labialisation is the most widespread secondary articulation in the world's languages. It is found in the Northwest Caucasian, Athabaskan, Salishan, and Indo-European language families, among others.

American English has three degrees of labialization: Fully rounded /w/ and initial /ɹ/, open-rounded /ʃ ʒ t͡ʃ d͡ʒ/, and unrounded, which in vowels is sometimes called spread. These secondary articulations are not universal. For example, while French shares the English open-rounding of /ʃ ʒ/, Russian does not. Such distinctions are helpful for non-native English speakers whose native languages use different articulations for sounds such as "r" and "l".

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Where found", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki