A 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 , a letter v with a leftward hook protruding from the upper right of the letter. In some sources, this letter indicates a bilabial approximant, though this is more accurately transcribed with an advanced diacritic, .
A labiodental approximant is the typical realization of in the Indian South African variety of English. As the voiceless is also realized as an approximant , it is also an example of a language contrasting voiceless and voiced labiodental approximants.
Features Features of a voiced labiodental approximant:
Occurrence Language Word IPA Meaning NotesÄiwoo'garden land' Armenian Eastern ոսկի 'gold' Assyrian / hawa ] 'wind' Predominant in the Urmia dialects. For some speakers, is used. Corresponds to in the other varieties. Catalan Balearic 'bean' Allophone of . See Catalan phonology Valencian ChineseMandarin為 为 / [we̞i]'for'Prevalent in northern dialects. Corresponds to in other varieties. See Mandarin PhonologyChuvashаван[aʋ'an]'good, well' Corresponds to in other varieties.Dhivehiވަޅު / valhu[ʋaɭu]'well' (noun)See Dhivehi Phonology Danish Standard 'know(s)' Realization of the phoneme ; may also be realized as . See Danish phonology Dutch Standard 'cheek' Realised as bilabial in southern european dialects . See Dutch phonology English Indian vine 'vine' Corresponds to a fricative in other accents. Some Cockney speakers rine 'rine' Mostly idiosyncratic but somewhat dialectal (especially in London and South East England). See English phonology and R-labialization Faroese 'speech' Word-initial and intervocalic allophone of . In the first case, it is in a free variation with a fricative . See Faroese phonology Finnish 'baby' See Finnish phonology German Swiss 'what' Corresponds to in Standard German. Guaraní 'Guaraní language' Contrasts with and Hawaiian 'fast' May also be realized as or . See Hawaiian phonology HindustaniHindi (the) 'one' May also be realized as or . See Hindustani phonology.Urdu Italian Some speakers 'rare' Rendition alternative to the standard Italian alveolar trill , 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 or a voiced uvular fricative . See Italian phonology. Icelandic ' to promise/ to praise' Weakly articulated, traditionally described as a fricative (which it is in free variation with)., cited in See Icelandic phonology Lao / 'hand fan' May also be realized as [w]. See Lao phonology. Khmer / 'weapon' See Khmer phonologyMalayalamവല/vala'net'See Malayalam phonology Marathi 'weight' See Marathi phonology Miyako 'thick' May be syllabic. Norwegian Urban East 'verb's principal parts' Sometimes realized as a fricative . See Norwegian phonology Nsenga 'people' Punjabi Gurmukhi ਵਾਲ 'hair' Also an allophone of /v/ and /w/.Shahmukhi Russian 'water' Common realization of ; contrasts with palatalized form. See Russian phonology Serbo-Croatian / 'wind' is a phonetic fricative, although it has less frication than . However, it does not interact with unvoiced consonants in clusters as a fricative would, and so is considered to be phonologically a sonorant (approximant). See Serbo-Croatian Phonology Shona 'people' Contrasts with and .Sinhala'water' Slovak 'wind' Usual realization of . See Slovak phonology Slovene 'wind' Also described as fricative . See Slovene phonologySpanishChilean'to speak'Allophone of /b/. See Spanish phonologySwedish Some speakers 'the vault' See Swedish phonology Tamil 'mouth' See Tamil phonology Telugu 'net' Ukrainian 'Barvinkove' Possible prevocalic realization of , most commonly before . See Ukrainian phonology West Frisian 'where' See West Frisian phonology
See also List of phonetics topics R-labialization Rhotacism (speech impediment): pronouncing as
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