labio-palatal consonant

A labio-palatalized sound is one that is simultaneously labialized and palatalized. Typically the roundedness is compressed, like , rather than protruded like . The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for this secondary articulation is , a superscript , the symbol for the labialized palatal approximant. If such sounds pattern with other, labialized, consonants, they may instead be transcribed as palatalized consonants plus labialization, , as with the = of Abkhaz or the = of Akan and Siberian Ingrian Finnish.

A voiced labialized palatal approximant occurs in Mandarin Chinese and French, but elsewhere is uncommon, as it is generally dependent upon the presence of front rounded vowels such as and , which are themselves not common. However, a labialized palatal approximant and labio-palatalized consonants appear in some languages without front rounded vowels in the Caucasus and in West Africa, such as Abkhaz, and as allophones of labialized consonants before , including the at the beginning of the language name Twi. In Russian, and trigger labialization of any preceding consonant, including palatalized consonants, so that нёс 'he carried' is phonetically .