InInglis an maist ither European leids,P is avoiceless bilabial plosive. Baith ineetial an final ‹p›s can be combined wi mony ither discreteconsonants in Inglis wirds. A common example oassimilation is the tendency o prefixes endin in ‹n› tae assume an ‹m› soond afore ‹p›s (such as:in +pulse →impulse — see:Leet o Latin wirds wi Inglis derivatives).
A common digraph in Inglis is ‹ph›, which represents thevoiceless labiodental fricative/f/, an can be uised tae transleeteratePhi (‹φ›) in loanwords fraeGreek. In German, the digraph ‹pf› is common, representin a labialaffricate o/pf/.
Arabic speakers are uisually unaccustomed tae pronooncin/p/; thay pronoonce it as/b/. In wirds that Arabic inheritit frae theProto-Semitic leid,/p/ is uisually pronoonced/f/.
Maist Inglis wirds beginnin wi P are o foreign origin, primarily French, Latin, Greek, an Slavic; thir leids preserveProto-Indo-European initial /*p/. Native Inglis cognates o sic wirds eften stairt wiF, syne Inglis is aGermanic leid an sicweys haes unnergoneGrimm's law; a native Inglis wird wi initial /p/ wad reflect Proto-Indo-European ineetial /*b/, which is sae rare that its existence as aphoneme is disputit.
Houiver, native Inglish wirds wi non-initial P are quite common; sic wirds can come frae aitherKluge's law or the sp combination; PIE /*p/ is preserved efter s.
