Voiced labiodental approximant

The voiced labiodental approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is something between an English /w/ and /v/, pronounced with the teeth and lips held in the position used to articulate the letter V. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʋ⟩, a letter v with a leftward hook protruding from the upper right of the letter, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is P or v\. With an advanced diacritic, ⟨ʋ̟⟩, this letter also indicates a bilabial approximant, though the diacritic is frequently omitted because no contrast is likely.^{[1][2][failed verification]}

Voiced labiodental approximant
ʋ
IPA number	150
Audio sample
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Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʋ
Unicode (hex)	U+028B
X-SAMPA	P or v\
Braille
Image

The labiodental approximant is the typical realization of /v/ in the Indian South African variety of English. As the voiceless /f/ is also realized as an approximant ([ʋ̥]), it is also an example of a language contrasting voiceless and voiced labiodental approximants.^[3]

Features

Features of the voiced labiodental approximant:

• Its manner of articulation is approximant, which means it is produced by narrowing the vocal tract at the place of articulation, but not enough to produce a turbulent airstream.
• Its place of articulation is labiodental, which means it is articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
• Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the central–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Äiwoo		nyiveli	[ɲiʋeli]	'garden land'[4]
Armenian	Eastern[5]	ոսկի	[ʋɔski]	'gold'
Assyrian		ܗܘܐ / hawa	[hɑːʋɑ]	'wind'	Predominant in the Urmia dialects. For some speakers, [v] is used. Corresponds to [w] in the other varieties.
Catalan	Balearic	fava	[ˈfɑʋɐ]	'bean'	Allophone of /v/.[6] See Catalan phonology
	Valencian[6]
Chinese	Mandarin	為 为 / wèi	[we̞i] [ʋêi]	'for'	Prevalent in northern dialects. Corresponds to /w/ in other varieties.
Chuvash		аван	[aʋ'an]	'good, well'	Corresponds to /w/ in other varieties.
Dhivehi		ވަޅު / valhu	[ʋaɭu]	'well' (noun)
Danish	Standard[7]	véd	[ʋe̝ːˀð̠˕ˠ]	'know(s)'	Also described as a short plosive [b̪̆]; rarely realized as a fricative [v] instead.[8] See Danish phonology
Dutch	Standard	wang	[ʋɑŋ]	'cheek'	In southern dialects of the Netherlands realised as bilabial [β̞]. See Dutch phonology
English	Indian[3]	vine	[ʋaɪ̯n]	'vine'	Corresponds to a fricative [v] in other accents.
	Some speakers	rine		'rine'	Mostly idiosyncratic but somewhat dialectal[9] (especially in London and South East England). See English phonology and R-labialization
Faroese[10]		røða	[ˈɹøːʋa]	'speech'	Word-initial and intervocalic allophone of /v/. In the first case, it is in a free variation with a fricative [v].[10] See Faroese phonology
Finnish		vauva	[ˈʋɑu̯ʋɑ]	'baby'	See Finnish phonology
German	Swiss	was	[ʋas]	'what'	Corresponds to /v/ in Standard German[11]
Guaraní		avañe'ẽ	[ʔãʋ̃ãɲẽˈʔẽ]	'Guaraní language'	Contrasts with /w/ and /ɰ/
Hawaiian		wikiwiki	[ʋikiʋiki]	'fast'	May also be realized as [w] or [v]. See Hawaiian phonology
Hindustani	Hindi	वाला	[ʋɑːlɑː]	(the) 'one'	Also an allophone of /v/ and /w/. See Hindustani phonology.
	Urdu	والا
Italian	Some speakers[12]	raro	[ˈʋäːʋo]	'rare'	Rendition alternative to the standard Italian alveolar trill [r], due to individual orthoepic defects and/or regional variations that make the alternative sound more prevalent, notably in South Tyrol (among the Italian-speaking minority), Val d'Aosta (bordering with France) and in parts of the Parma province, more markedly around Fidenza. Other alternative sounds may be a uvular trill [ʀ] or a voiced uvular fricative [ʁ].[12] See Italian phonology.
Lao		ວີ / wi	[ʋíː]	'hand fan'	May also be realized as [w]. See Lao phonology.
Khmer		អាវុធ / avŭth	[ʔɑːʋut]	'weapon'	See Khmer phonology
Marathi		वजन	[ʋə(d)zən]	'weight'	See Marathi phonology
Miyako[13]		[ʋ̩tɑ]		'thick'	May be syllabic.
Norwegian	Urban East[14][15]	venn	[ʋe̞nː]	'friend'	Sometimes realized as a fricative [v].[15][16] See Norwegian phonology
Nsenga		ŵanthu	[ʋaⁿtʰu]	'people'
Punjabi	Gurmukhi	ਵਾਲ	[ʋäːl]	'hair'	Also an allophone of /v/ and /w/.
	Shahmukhi	وال
Russian[17]		волосы	[ˈʋʷo̞ɫ̪əsˠɘ]	'hair'	Common realization of /v/; contrasts with palatalized form.[17] See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatian		цврчак / cvrčak	[t͡sʋř̩ːt͡ʃak]	'cricket'	/v/ is a phonetic fricative, although it has less frication than /f/. However, it does not interact with unvoiced consonants in clusters as a fricative would, and so is considered to be phonologically a sonorant (approximant).[18][19]
Shona		vanhu	[ʋan̤u]	'people'	Contrasts with /v/ and /w/.
Sinhala		වතුර	[ʋat̪urə]	'water'
Slovak[20]		voda	[ˈʋo̞dä]ⓘ	'water'	Usual realization of /v/.[20] See Slovak phonology
Slovene[21]		veter	[ˈʋéːt̪ə̀ɾ]	'wind'	Also described as fricative [v].[22][23] See Slovene phonology
Spanish[24]	Chilean	hablar	[äʋˈläɾ]	'to speak'	Allophone of /b/. See Spanish phonology
Swedish	Some speakers	vän	[ʋɛːn]	'friend'	See Swedish phonology
Tamil		வாய்	[ʋɑj]	'mouth'	See Tamil phonology
Telugu		వల	[ʋala]	'net'
Ukrainian[25]		він	[ʋin]	'he'	Possible prevocalic realization of /w/, most commonly before /i/.[25] See Ukrainian phonology
West Frisian		wêr	[ʋɛːr]	'where'	See West Frisian phonology

See also

• List of phonetics topics
• R-labialization
• Rhotacism (speech impediment): pronouncing ⟨r⟩ as [ʋ]