ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the usual and frequent phenomena those labial-velars of Africa. Africanists are accustomed to thinking of labial-velars as a single consonantal unit, and it is easy to forget that this may not be a natural assumption for linguists with a non-African background. Labial-velar obstruents are often characterized as "African sounds." Labial-velar consonants occur in at least some languages of all of the main subfamilies of Niger-Congo, and many of the languages of Nilo-Saharan as well. Though labial-velars are often characterized as "simultaneous" labial and velar articulations, the reality is slightly more complex. Ultrasound measurements have been applied to labial-velars, showing the same pattern as the electromagnetic articulography. One might wonder why the onset of a labial-velar is velar and the release is labial, rather than the other way around, or even a more simultaneous articulation. Some languages have been documented to have developed labial-velars by means of regular sound change through history.
