{ka. hka. ga.}
prop-con4.htm
by U Kyaw Tun, M.S. (I.P.S.T., U.S.A.). Not for sale. Prepared for students of TIL Computing and Language Center, Yangon, MYANMAR.
UKT: Based on
Properties of Consonants and Vowels, Kevin Russell, Linguistics Department, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T 5V5, CANADA http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/linguistics/russell/138/notes.htm.
Online Phonetics Course (UNIL), Department of Linguistics, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
(This source was downloaded in 2000 or a few years later, and instead of the original links, you can still get to them from: http://www.unil.ch/ling/page30184_fr.html -- UKT: 070823)
Consonants
glottal
velar
palatal
retroflex
palato-alveolar (IPA: post-alveolar)
alveolar
dental
labio-dental
bilabial
UKT notes largely from Wikipedia
for updating my knowledge
by UKT based on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonant download 070928
Note to myself: This file was originally in prop-con.htm which was getting large and had to split. I still have to go over it.
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. The word consonant comes from Latin and means "sounding with" or "sounding together," the idea being that consonants don't sound on their own, but occur only with a nearby vowel, which is the case in Latin. This conception of consonants, however, does not reflect the modern linguistic understanding which defines consonants in terms of vocal tract constriction.
UKT: There is a fundamental difference between consonants in the abugida system of writing and the alphabetic system. In the abugida, such as Burmese-Myanmar, the individual character is a syllable, and is therefore pronounceable. However, in the alphabet, the individual character or "letter" cannot be pronounced unless it is supplied with a vowel, the simplest of which is /a/. However, a syllable made up of consonant followed by /a/ is not commonly met in regular English words (I still have to find one in DJPD16). However, we can expect to find one in the English-transcriptions of foreign words. In English, the most commonly used in place of /a/ is schwa /ə/. We must note that /ə/ is a sound, not a letter of the English-Latin alphabet.
Since the number of consonants in the world's languages is much greater than the number of consonant letters in any one alphabet, linguists have devised systems such as the IPA to assign a unique symbol to each possible consonant. In fact, the Latin alphabet (UKT: Roman is the language, Latin the script), which is used to write English, has fewer consonant letters than English has consonant sounds, so some letters represent more than one consonant, and digraphs like "sh" and "th" are used to represent some sounds. Many speakers aren't even aware that the "th" sound in <this> is a different sound from the "th" sound in <thing> (in the IPA they're [๐] and [θ], respectively).
Consonantal features: Each consonant can be distinguished by several features:
All English consonants can be classified by a combination of these features, such as "voiceless alveolar stop consonant" [t]. In this case the airstream mechanism is omitted.
Some pairs of consonants like p::b, t::d are sometimes called fortis and lenis, but this is a phonological rather than phonetic distinction
Consonant as a symbol: The word consonant is also used to refer to a letter of an alphabet that denotes a consonant sound. Consonant letters in the English alphabet are B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, X, Z, and usually Y: The letter Y stands for the consonant [j] in "yoke", and for the vowel [ɪ] in "myth", for example; W is almost always a consonant except in rare words like "crwth" "cwm".
I have the taken the descriptions of various POAs (which are given in the
following sections) from various sources:
http://www.unil.ch/ling/page24511.html
http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/linguistics/russell/138/sec3/poa-big.htm
http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/linguistics/russell/138/sec5/s5-poa.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_of_articulation download 070926
Click on a particular letter to see its properties.
Unless, you can really listen to the sounds directly from humans or from
machines that have recorded the human sounds, no amount of descriptions will
make you "hear" the actual sounds. Go online to the following links to listen to
the recorded sounds:
http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/course/chapter1/chapter1.html
http://www.unil.ch/ling/page24511.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonant download 070927
Click on a particular letter to hear its sound. Since alphabetic consonants (as
opposed to abugidic) have no sounds, what you will hear is the sound of the
consonant which has been supplied with a vowel which I presumed is /a/.
In the descriptions of consonants given in the following sections, I have given the nearest Burmese-Myanmar consonants.
Glottal consonants are consonants "articulated with the glottis". Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricatives, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider them to be consonants at all. However, the glottal stop at least behaves as a typical consonant in languages such as Tsou.
UKT: Statements such as "articulated with the glottis" have always troubled me, because "the glottis" is not like the "the tip of the tongue". Glottis is the "space" below the epiglottis, and the statement should be "articulated in the glottis".
Glottal consonants in the IPA are:
[ʔ] (voiceless (vl) glottal stop. The same as MLC [ ' ])
[ɦ] (breathy voiced (vd) glottal "fricative")
[h] (vl glottal "fricative") as in English
<hat> [hๆt] .
UKT: Remember, the consonants are divided in Burmese-Myanmar akshara system (abugida) and in all languages written in Brahmi derived scripts into: the {wag}-aksharas, and the {a.wag}-aksharas. The {wag}-aksharas can be divided into vl, vd and nasal aksharas. The {a.wag} are so-called because they are not easily classifiable.
In the alphabetic system (including the IPA), they are classified as: stops (or plosives), nasals, fricatives, and approximants (including the laterals). Affricates are those derived from stops and fricatives.
Thus, {wag}-aksharas include: stops (or plosives), and nasals. The {a.wag}-aksharas include: approximants (including laterals). Fricatives such as <s> [s] are included in the {wag}, but others such as <th> [θ , ๐] are included in {a.wag}. Affricates, being medials, do not belong to the basic aksharas, and are left out.
You will come across statements such as "The "fricatives" are not true fricatives". And you will get bogged down if you try to find out what linguists mean by terms such as fricatives. This has been my experience, and that is why I will give the "associated" Burmese-Myanmar akshara for each POA.
The "fricatives" are not true fricatives. This is a historical usage of the word. They instead represent transitional states of the glottis (phonation) without a specific place of articulation. [h] is a voiceless transition. [ɦ] is a breathy-voiced transition, and could be transcribed as [h̤].
The glottal stop occurs in many languages. Often all vocalic onsets are preceded by a glottal stop, for example in German. The Hawaiian language writes the glottal stop as an opening single quote . Some alphabets use diacritics for the glottal stop, such as hamza <ء> in the Arabic alphabet; in many languages of Mesoamerica, the Latin letter <h> is used for glottal stop.
Because the glottis is necessarily closed for the glottal stop, it cannot be voiced.
Kevin Russell wrote:
http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/linguistics/russell/138/sec3/poa-big.htm
"The English glottal consonant is represented by /h/.
Glottal isn't strictly a place of articulation,
but they had to put it in the chart somewhere.
Glottal sounds are made in the larynx.
For the glottal stop, the vocal cords close momentarily
and cut off all airflow through the vocal tract.
English uses the glottal stop in the interjection
uh-uh [ʔʌ͂́ʔʌ͂̀]
(meaning 'no'). In /h/, the vocal cords are open,
but close enough together that air passing
between them creates friction noise."
UKT: What Kevin Russell has written: Glottal sounds are made in the larynx has made me wonder, whether the "glottals" might be called "laryngeals". Searching on the net has brought out:
"laryngeal may mean:
pertaining to the larynx
in Indo-European linguistics, a consonant postulated in the Laryngeal Theory. See Laryngeal Theory in my notes.
in phonetics, an obsolete term for glottal and pharyngeal sounds.
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laryngeal
UKT: POA
{lๆั-hkyaung:} or throat produces velars or gutterals
{kaN~Hta.} sounds.
-- Pali-Myan-Gramm005.
Associated with{ka. ga. nga.}. Caveat: English <k> sound is close to {hka.} than to {ka.}. Western phoneticians accepts that [k] and [kʰ] are allophones of /k/. We will see the same view for other pairs of c1 and c2 of {wag}-aksharas.
The active articulator is the tongue body and the passive articulator
is the soft palate. English velars include /k/, /g/, and /ŋ/
and the corresponding Burmese-Myanmar
{ka. ga. nga.}. Though described as English velar "sounds"
/k/, /g/, and /ŋ/ are not pronounceable unless supplied
with a vowel. Whereas, the Burmese counterparts {ka.}, {ga}. and {nga.}
can be pronounced because of the presence of the inherent vowel
described as English short [a]. I still have to find a simple
English word, with the short /a/ in DJPD16. Here, we must note
that there are 2 divisions of vowels: one, the free vowels
and the other the checked vowels. We can easily pronounce
and hear the free vowels. However, in the case of checked vowels,
unless there is a consonant following it, it cannot be pronounced.
It is important to remember that Burmese syllables always end
in vowels and that Burmese phonotactics is quite different
from that of English. What the English-speaking Myanmars
thought to be /a/ in <car> is /ɑ/: {au} not {a}.
And, <car> is pronounced as the cawing of a crow:
/kɑːʳ/ (DJPD16 p.82). Similarly, the vowel
in <father> is /ɑ/ with the Burmese pronunciation
{au:} and NOT
{a:}. The disyllabic word <father> should
be pronounced by Myanmar as
{hpau:tha:} and not
{hpa:tha:}. The actual pronunciation is something in between.
"labio-velar" /w/ is often called a "labio-velar". This doesn't follow the POA naming convention -- it does not mean that the active articulator is the lower lip and you try to touch your soft palate with it! A /w/ is made up of two different approximants: a bilabial approximant and a (dorso-) velar approximant pronounced simultaneously. Pronounce Burmese-Myanmar
{wa.} (the equivalent of English-Latin <w>), and you will notice that the first part is the rounding of the lips, and then the POA seems to move into the interior.
UKT: The word <throat> means 'the anterior portion of the neck', or 'the portion of the digestive tract that lies between the rear of the mouth and the esophagus and includes the fauces and the pharynx'. (from AHTD). It makes me wonder, if it suggests that
UKT:
POA{a-sauk} produces
{ta-lu.} or palatals. -- Pali-Myan-Gramm005
Kevin Russell:
"The active articulator is the tongue body and the passive articulator
is the hard palate. The English glide
Note
that / j / is the English-Latin <y> which is considered
to be a semi-vowel. The Burmese-Myanmar equivalent
{ya.} is considered to be a consonant, but an {a.wag} which can form
a medial {ya.ping.} with the following.
{wag}-consonants:
{ka.} + {a.that} + {ya.} --> {kya.}
{pa.} + {a.that} + {ya.} --> {pya.}
{ba.} + {a.that} + {ya.} --> {bya.}
{ma.} + {a.that} + {ya.} --> {mya.}{a.wag}-consonants:
{ya.} + {a.that} + {ya.} --> {yya.}
{la.} + {a.that} + {ya.} --> {lya.}
{tha.} + {a.that} + {ya.} --> {thya.} (?)
{thya.} seems to be very unstable and a {ha.} has to be added to give more aspiration:
{tha.} + {a.that} + {ha.} + {a.that} + {ya.} --> {thhya.}
{thhya.} is supposed to have a pronunciation similar to <sh> in <ship> or IPA / ʃ /.UKT: I have been trying to find a linguistic term that would be suitable to describe the {a.wag} consonants. The best, I have found so far is 'approximant'. Among this group, <y> /j/ and <w> also behave as 'vowels' (semivowels) when they can be described as 'glides'. (UKT 070825). See liquids and glides in my notes.
The palatal approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the IPA that represents this sound is j. In the Americanist phonetic notation it is y. In most languages of Central, Northern and Eastern Europe, the letter "j" denotes the palatal approximant, like the German word "Jacke". In Finnic languages such as Finnish, this is mostly without exception, but the Savo dialect also marks palatalization with 'j'. In Germanic languages, there are exceptions such as the Swedish and Norwegian digraph "tj" ([t̠ɕ], [ɕ], or [็]).
-- Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_approximant downloaded 070927The voiced labiovelar (actually labialized velar) approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in certain spoken languages, including English. The symbol in the IPA that represents this sound is w .
-- Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_labial-velar_approximant download 070927
In Burmese-Myanmar, the process of palatalisation is the production of medial {ya.ping.}. The <k> in my first name [Kyaw] is a velar, and in [ky] it has been palatalised to /kʲ/
UKT: POA
{a-htaip} produces
{moad~Da.} or retroflex (also called "cerebrals") -- Pali-Myan-Gramm005.
The closest sound to a retroflex that English has is / ɹ / . For most North Americans, the tongue tip is curled back in /ɹ/, though not as much as it is in languages that have true retroflexes. Many other North Americans use what is called a "bunched r" -- instead of curling their tongues back, they bunch the front up and push it forward to form an approximant behind the alveolar ridge.
The English <r> is described as "post-alveolar" in the Table of English Consonants DJPD16 p.x. The table does not list a column for retroflex. I think the name "post-alveolar" is misleading for the akshara people who start counting the POA from "glottal to bilabial", exactly the opposite of IPA, which would make the <r> into a "post-palatal" or "pre-alveolar". To take out the possible misunderstanding the name applied to <r> should have been "palato-alveolar".
Burmese-Myanmar {ra.} seems to be similar to English-Latin <r>. Apparently, Myanmars do not know how to pronounce retroflex sounds. However, the {wag} part of the Myanmar akshara table is believed to have characters with the retroflex sound in column c4 {Ga. Za. ะa. Da. Ba.}, and in the whole row r3 {Ta. ๐a. Na.}.
The Indic languages have the retroflex characters in the same column c4. The Devanagari characters are transcripted as: घ Gha, झ Jha, ढ Ddha, ध Dha, भ Bha in Windows-XP Character Map. The transcription of ISCII-1991 (Bureau of Indian Standards, http://varamozhi.sourceforge.net/iscii91.pdf) is: घ gha, झ jha, ढ ḍha, ध dha, भ bha . See Table of Devanagari Consonants in my notes.
The transcriptions have "h"s added to the names of retroflexes, which reminds me of what Rev. U Kaw-wi-da of Toronto Burmese-Buddhist monastery had told me at one time about the recitation of {ka.ma.wa} by the Burmese-Buddhist monks. {ka.ma.wa} is in Pali-Myanmar, and when they recite it, they have to do very precisely as was mandated since ancient times. One particular word, they recite is {thไn-Gau:}, and it has to be recited with force and with a {ha.} sound.
{kam~ma.wa} /[kamawa]/ - n. 1. selection from sacred Pali texts recited by monks according to the ritual performed. -- MEDict024.
Perhaps what the Indic languages have, and what the Myanmar monks recite, are not true "retroflexes" but just "aspirated" voiced and voiceless sounds. Since, Burmese has no true retroflexes, I will have to look into Indic languages, and ISCII, and then rewrite the whole section again, or some of my peers would pick up the subject again.
UKT: The clue to this POA is from English / ʃ / sound, represented in English words <sheep> /ʃiːp/ (info panel DJPD16 p483) and <she> /ʃiː/ (DJPD16 p,484). There was a controversy on how this should be represented in Burmese-Myanmar: either as
{rha.} or
{thhya.}. The controversy was arbitrarily settled by MLC in the 1980s by adopting
{U.thhyis} MEDict610.
My suggestion is: Shouldn't we be a little adventurous, and allow {sa.} to be "aspirated" by putting a {ha.hto:} to it?
{sa.} + {a.that} +
{ha.} -->
{sha.}
I hope my old Burmese teachers (U Hla Shw้, U Hla Maung, U Kyaw Yin, Bassein U Chit Tun, etc.) would forgive me for this bold suggestion. Knowing me for what I am, I could imagine my old Saya U Hla Shwe (now dead and gone, but never forgotten), the Rector under whom I had worked in Mandalay University looking at me with his enigmatic smile on his face.
Postalveolar sounds involve the
area just behind the alveolar ridge as the passive articulator. The active
articulator may be either the tongue tip or (usually) the tongue blade --
diacritic symbols can be used if it matters which. English post-alveolars include
/ ʃ / and
According to DJPD16 p.x, there are 5 post-alveolars in English:
/ʧ ʤ/ (
affricate); /ʃ ʒ/
(fricative)(b1); and /r/
(approximant).
The post-alveolar that is of interest to me is /r/, the approximant, the equivalent of which is {ra.}. It is a basic consonant, unlike the other 4, which are medials.
Among the 4 medials, the one that has been a point of confusion among the Western linguists, is /ʧ/ with the sound of <ch> in <church>.
<church> /ʧɜːʧ/ (US) /ʧɝːʧ/ -- DJPD16 p097
I was faced with the problem of identifying /ʧ/ with a character in Burmese-Myanmar or Pali-Myanmar. There were two choices for me: a medial formed from {ka.} with {ya.} or one formed from {hka.} with {ya.}. Ordinarily, I would have chosen the medial formed from {hka.}. However, realising that the English pronunciation of <ch> is similar to that of {hka.} rather than {ka.}, and because of the presence of <h> in <ch>, I have decided /ʧ/ corresponds to {kya.}. This identification has lead me to identify r2c1 {sa.} with Devanagari r2c1च [ca] (U091A).
UKT: I am still not satisfied with what I had just written, because of r2c1 being given as [ca] by Pali-Latin. The IPA table has both [c] (plosive) and [็] (small Latin letter C with a cedilla) (fricative). See [c]-sound in French in my notes. I am wondering whether Myanmar {sa.} is behaving as a plosive in some cases and as a fricative in other cases.
This identification has explained why
{san~da} (MEDict124), the
word for <moon> in Burmese-Myanmar is "Chandra" in Sanskrit -- the first name of
late Chandra Prasad (aka) U Thein Aung (Lecturer in Chemistry, Bassein
University). Chandra was one of my favorite pupils, a Gorkha (Gurkha)
born in Myitkyina in northern Myanmar. From him, I learned that his own father
had walked all the way from Nepal to Myanmar across the well-known mountain
passes, and that a sizeable number of Gorkhas had walked, driving their cattle
with them, from the Gorkha villages of Myitkyina, back to Nepal when Burma (now
Myanmar) gained independence from Britain. This story is the one of the
foundations of my belief that the Myanmar akshara had come directly from the birth-place
of the Buddha (on the border of Nepal and India) over land routes, rather than
through southern India and the Mon territory in southern Burma.
Linguists have traditionally used very inconsistent terminology in referring to the post-alveolar POA. Some of the terms you may encounter for it include: palato-alveolar, alveo-palatal, alveolo-palatal, and even (especially among English-speakers) palatal. Many insist that palato-alveolar and alveo(lo)-palatal are two different things -- though they don't agree which is which. See [ʃ ɕ] fricatives (b) in my notes. "Post-alveolar", the official term used by the International Phonetic Association, is supposedly unambiguous - if you know what "post" is supposed to mean! If you are using the direction of exterior to interior, as IPA has done, you know that "post" is after "alveolar". But for the akshara users, the direction is from the interior to exterior, the term should be "pre-alveolar"!
UKT: The word <alveolar> refers to the alveolar ridge containing the tooth sockets. Here, the teeth are the upper teeth.
alveolar adj. 1. Of or relating to an alveolus. 2. Anatomy a. Relating to the jaw section containing the tooth sockets: the alveolar ridge. b. Relating to the alveoli of the lungs -- AHTD
The POA-alveolar (see Table of IPA Consonants) is one of the three of the group of the "dental, alveolar and post-alveolar". Leaving post-alveolar out, Pali-Myanmar listed alveolar and dental in one group as "dental"
{dan~ta.}.
Alveolar sounds involve the alveolar ridge as the passive articulator. The active articulator may be either the tongue blade or (usually) the tongue tip -- diacritic symbols can be used if it matters which. English alveolar sounds include /t, d, n/, and their equivalents in Burmese-Myanmar: {ta. da. na.} of row r4. Pronounce them, and you will clearly notice that your tongue tip is touching the alveolar ridge.
There are other sounds described as alveolars. The English /s/ and /z/ (and their sound-alike Burmese-Myanmar {sa.} and {za.}) are alveolars. If you are a Burmese-Myanmar you might ask: What about {ัa.} that occupies the same row of the akshara matrix, r2?
UKT: Spanish [ั] and French [gn] are palatals -- http://clauchau.free.fr/L/phonalph.html#nasals . Is Burmese-Myanmar {ัa} the same as Spanish [ั]? If I were to say "yes", you will come back at me, and say {sa.} and {za.} must be palatals and not alveolars. Actually row 2, is an enigma. In Devanagari, r2c1 is च (U091A) transcripted as [ca] by ISCII-1991 (Bureau of Indian Standards, http://varamozhi.sourceforge.net/iscii91.pdf ), and r2c3 ज (U091C) as [ja]. Since, च [ca] pronounced by my Indian friends sound so much like {kya.}, and ज [ja] as {gya.}, I was at a loss. During a discussion on this question, my good friend U Tun Tint mused at one time, "there might be a mistake in row 2", and I agreed with him. So, let's leave the question of {ัa.} and row 2 as a topic for others to pursue.
Another alveolar is < l > (Latin small cap L), an approximant. Its equivalent {la.} is an {a-wag} which is not readily definable. Since, the {a.wag}'s are quite controversial, if you are asked to give examples of alveolars, just stick with /t/, /d/, /n/, and their equivalents {ta.} {da.} {na.}
Since in both Myanmar and Devanagari, {ya. ra. la. wa.} are in a row {a.wag}, you might be tempted to ask, what about /r/? We will leave English <w>, Myanmar {wa.} and Devanagari [va] (all equivalents to each other) for a while, and say something about /r/. See /r/ in Table of IPA consonants.
Both IPA and UNIL gives / r / as an alveolar trill. (In the section on "POA-retroflex", we have alluded to the fact that English <r> is not a trill, and that it is / ɹ / ). The alveolar region serves as the target for the tongue tip, which vibrates there under pressure from the air-stream behind. The vibration produces occlusive sounds and vocalic-type resonances in rapid alternation. This is the famous rolled r of Spanish and other languages. However, English (especially British) does not seem to have a trill. In fact English <r> is said to be /ɹ/. Since, I don't know much about the Indic languages, I will leave aside the pronunciation of Devanagari [ra], and say Burmese-Myanmar {ra.} like the English <r> is not a trill (nor rhotic) but an approximant.
Dental sounds involve the upper teeth as the passive articulator. The active articulator may be either the tongue tip or (usually) the tongue blade -- diacritic symbols can be used if it matters which. Kevin Russell did not give any English sounds for dentals.
UKT: Extreme lamino-dental sounds are often called interdental. English interdental sounds include the variations of <th> /θ/ (as in <thin>) and /๐/ (as in <that>). It is unfortunate that <th> has been discussed within this group without pointing out that it is not a plosive (or stop), whereas /t/, /d/ and /n/ are plosives. /θ/ and /๐/ of English <th> are " fricatives".
Alveolars and dentals are best described together when studying Burmese-Myanmar. Alveolar sounds involve the alveolar ridge as the passive articulator. The active articulator may be either the tongue blade or (usually) the tongue tip. Dental sounds involve the upper teeth as the passive articulator. The active articulator may be either the tongue tip or (usually) the tongue blade. The Burmese-Myanmar consonants that represent these sounds are: {ta. da. na.}
UKT: It is strange that Burmese-Myanmar does not have this POA. And, in all probability, Devanagari does not seem to have this.
The lower lip is the active articulator and the upper teeth are the passive articulator. English labio-dental sounds include /f/ and /v/.
These two sounds are absent in Burmese-Myanmar, and unless a Myanmar is trained he would not be able to produce this sound, and pronounce /v/ as {wi} or {bwi}. And so, we can conclude that the closest Burmese-Myanmar could come up is {wa.} for /v/.
It is interesting to note that the Devanagari character corresponding to {wa.}
is व which is transcripted as [Va] in Windows-XP and [va] by
ISCII. If you remove the ever-present stroke similar to English cap. T, Myanmar
{wa.} and Devanagari [va] are the same -- the circle. We find the same circle in
Asoka script or Brahmi, but with a short vertical line attached to the top:
.
See:
http://www.ancientscripts.com/brahmi.html
UKT:
POA {nhoat-hkam:} or lips produce labials{AUT~Hta.} -- Pali-Myan-Gramm005
(labial -- MEDict626)
The word <labialisation> has very little to do with this POA: it has more to do with "lip rounding" and we will deal with it in Lip movements in prop-con2.htm
The articulators are the two lips. (We could say that the lower lip is the active articulator and the upper lip the passive articulator, though the upper lip usually moves too, at least a little.) Though described as English bilabial "sounds" [p], [b], and [m] are not pronounceable unless supplied with a vowel. Whereas, the Burmese counterparts {pa.}, {ba}. and {ma.} can be pronounced because of the presence of the inherent vowel /a/.
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