Voiced labial–velar approximant
consonantal sound
The voiced labial–velar approximant is a consonant sound, used in some spoken languages including English. It is the sound denoted by the letter ⟨w⟩ in the English alphabet.[1] Similarly, the symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨w⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is w. In most languages it is the semivocalic counterpart of the close back rounded vowel [u].
| Voiced labial–velar approximant | |
|---|---|
| w | |
| IPA Number | 170 |
| Audio sample | |
| Encoding | |
| Entity (decimal) | w |
| Unicode (hex) | U+0077 |
| X-SAMPA | w |
| Braille |  |
Features
changeFeatures of the voiced labial–velar approximant:
- Its manner of articulation is approximant, which means it is produced by narrowing the vocal tract enough for it to not be a vowel, but not enough to make a hissing type of noise (a fricative).
- Its place of articulation is labialized velar, which means it is produced with the back part of the tongue raised toward the soft palate while rounding the lips.
- 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.
- It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
- The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.
Occurrence
change| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abkhaz | ауаҩы/auaòy | [awaˈɥə] | 'human' | See Abkhaz phonology | |
| Alemannic | Bernese German | Giel | [ɡ̊iə̯w] | 'boy' | Allophone of [l] |
| Arabic | Modern Standard[2] | وَرْد/ward | [ward] | 'rose' | See Arabic phonology |
| Assamese | ৱাশ্বিংটন/washington | [waʃiŋtɔn] | 'Washington' | ||
| Assyrian | ܟܬܒ̣ܐ ctava | [ctaːwa] | 'book' | Most speakers. [v] and [ʋ] are used in the Urmia dialects. | |
| Basque | lau | [law] | 'four' | ||
| Belarusian | воўк/voŭk | [vɔwk] | 'wolf' | See Belarusian phonology | |
| Bengali | ওয়াদা/uada | [wada] | 'promise' | Allophone of [o] and [u] when preceding a vowel word-initially. See Bengali phonology | |
| Berber | ⴰⵡⴰⵍ/awal | [æwæl] | 'speech' | ||
| Catalan[3] | quart | [ˈkwɑɾt] | 'fourth' | Post-lexically after /k/ and /ɡ/. See Catalan phonology | |
| Chinese | Cantonese | 挖/waat |  [wɑːt̚˧] |
'dig' | See Cantonese phonology |
| Mandarin | 挖/wā | [wa̠˥] |
See Mandarin phonology | ||
| Danish | hav | [hɑw] | 'ocean' | Allophone of [v] | |
| Dutch | Colloquial | kouwe | [ˈkʌu̯wə] | 'cold' | Lenited allophone of /d/ after /ʌu̯/. See Dutch phonology |
| Standard Surinamese | welp | [wɛɫp] | 'cub' | May also occur in this context in some continental Dutch accents and/or dialects.[4][5] Corresponds to [ʋ] in most of the Netherlands and to [β̞] in Belgium and (southern) parts of the Netherlands. See Dutch phonology | |
| English | weep | [wiːp] | 'weep' | See English phonology | |
| Esperanto | aŭto | ['awto] | 'car' | See Esperanto phonology | |
| French[6] | oui | [wi] | 'yes' | See French phonology | |
| German | Quelle | [kweːlə] | 'source' | Some regions | |
| Hawaiian[7] | wikiwiki | [wikiwiki] | 'fast' | May also be realized as [v]. See Hawaiian phonology | |
| Hebrew | Oriental | כּוֹחַ/kowaḥ | [ˈkowaħ] | 'power' | See Modern Hebrew phonology |
| Hindustani[8] | Hindi | विश्वास | [ʋɪʃwaːs] | 'believe' | See Hindustani phonology |
| Urdu | وشواس | ||||
| Irish | vóta | [ˈwoːt̪ˠə] | 'vote' | See Irish phonology | |
| Italian[9] | uomo | [ˈwɔːmo] | 'man' | See Italian phonology | |
| Kabardian | уэ/wǎ | [wa] (help·info) |
'you' | ||
| Korean | 왜가리/waegari | [wɛɡɐɾi] | 'heron' | See Korean phonology | |
| Luxembourgish[10] | zwee | [t͡swe̝ː] | 'two' | Allophone of /v/ after /k, t͡s, ʃ/.[11] See Luxembourgish phonology | |
| Malay | wang | [waŋ] | 'money' | ||
| Mayan | Yucatec | witz | [wit͡s] | 'mountain' | |
| Nepali | हावा | [ɦäwä] | 'wind' | See Nepali phonology | |
| Odia[12] | ଅଗ୍ରୱାଲ୍/agrawāl | [ɔgɾɔwäl] | 'Agrawal' | ||
| Pashto | ﻭﺍﺭ/war | [wɑr] | 'one time' | ||
| Persian | Dari | ورزش/warzeš | [wærzeʃ] | 'sport' | |
| Colloquial | ون/naw | [now], [næw] | 'new' | As a diphthong. | |
| Polish[13] | łaska | [ˈwäskä] (help·info) |
'grace' | See Polish phonology. Corresponds to [ɫ] in older pronunciation and eastern dialects | |
| Portuguese[14] | Most dialects | quando | [ˈkwɐ̃du] | 'when' | Post-lexically after /k/ and /ɡ/. See Portuguese phonology |
| boa | [ˈbow.wɐ] | 'good' (f.) | Epenthetic glide or allophone of /u/, following a stressed rounded vowel and preceding an unrounded one.[15] | ||
| General Brazilian | qual | [ˈkwaw] | 'which' | Allophone of /l/ in coda position for most Brazilian dialects.[14] | |
| Romanian | dulău | [d̪uˈl̪əw] | 'mastiff' | See Romanian phonology | |
| Serbo-Croatian | Croatian[16] | vuk | [wûːk] | 'wolf' | Allophone of /ʋ/ before /u/.[16] See Serbo-Croatian phonology |
| Seri | cmiique | [ˈkw̃ĩːkːɛ] | 'person' | Allophone of /m/ | |
| Slovene[17][18] | cerkev | [ˈt͡sèːrkəw] | 'church' | Allophone of /ʋ/ in the syllable coda.[17][18] Voiceless [ʍ] before voiceless consonants. See Slovene phonology | |
| Sotho | sewa | [ˈsewa] | 'epidemic' | See Sesotho phonology | |
| Spanish[19] | cuanto | [ˈkwãn̪t̪o̞] | 'as much' | See Spanish phonology | |
| Swahili | mwanafunzi | [mwɑnɑfunzi] | 'student' | ||
| Swedish | Central Standard[20] | gå | [gʷoː] | 'go' | Labialized approximant consonant; allophone of /ɡ/ in casual speech before the protruded vowels /ɔ, oː/. See Swedish phonology |
| Tagalog | araw | [ˈɐɾaw] | 'day' | See Tagalog phonology | |
| Thai | แหวน /waen | [wɛn˩˩˦] | 'ring' | ||
| Ukrainian | вовк/voŭk | [vɔwk] | 'wolf' | See Ukrainian phonology | |
| Vietnamese[21] | tuần | [t̪wən˨˩] | 'week' | See Vietnamese phonology | |
| Welsh | gwae | [ɡwaɨ] | 'woe' | See Welsh phonology | |
| West Frisian | skowe | [skoːwə] | 'to shove' | ||
Notes
change- ↑ Guidelines for Transcription of English Consonants and Vowels (PDF), archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-08-13, retrieved 2022-07-12; see the examples on the fifth page.
- ↑ Watson (2002), p. 13.
- ↑ Carbonell & Llisterri (1992), p. 55.
- ↑ "Recording dialect from Egmond aan Zee (Bergen), North Holland)". www.meertens.knaw.nl. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
- ↑ "Recording and video from dialect of Katwijk, South Holland". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
- ↑ Fougeron & Smith (1993), p. 75.
- ↑ Pukui & Elbert (1986), p. xvii.
- ↑ Ladefoged (2005), p. 141.
- ↑ Rogers & d'Arcangeli (2004), p. 117.
- ↑ Gilles & Trouvain (2013), pp. 67, 69.
- ↑ Gilles & Trouvain (2013), p. 69.
- ↑ Masica (1991), p. 107.
- ↑ Jassem (2003), p. 103.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Barbosa & Albano (2004), p. 230.
- ↑ France (2004).
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Landau et al. (1999), p. 68.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 Šuštaršič, Komar & Petek (1999), p. 136.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Greenberg (2006), p. 18.
- ↑ Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003), p. 256.
- ↑ Engstrand (2004), p. 167.
- ↑ Thompson (1959), pp. 458–461.
References
change- Barbosa, Plínio A.; Albano, Eleonora C. (2004), "Brazilian Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (2): 227–232, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001756
- Carbonell, Joan F.; Llisterri, Joaquim (1992), "Catalan", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 22 (1–2): 53–56, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004618, S2CID 249411809
- Engstrand, Olle (2004), Fonetikens grunder (in Swedish), Lund: Studenlitteratur, ISBN 91-44-04238-8
- Fougeron, Cecile; Smith, Caroline L. (1993), "French", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 23 (2): 73–76, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004874, S2CID 249404451
- France, Angela (2004). "Problemas na variante tensa da fala carioca" [Problems with tense variant of carioca speech]. DELTA: Documentação de Estudos em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada (in Portuguese). 20 (spe). São Paulo: 33–58. doi:10.1590/S0102-44502004000300005. ISSN 0102-4450.
- Gilles, Peter; Trouvain, Jürgen (2013), "Luxembourgish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43 (1): 67–74, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000278
- Greenberg, Mark L. (2006), A Short Reference Grammar of Standard Slovene, Kansas: University of Kansas
- Jassem, Wiktor (2003), "Polish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (1): 103–107, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001191
- Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (2nd ed.), Blackwell
- Landau, Ernestina; Lončarić, Mijo; Horga, Damir; Škarić, Ivo (1999), "Croatian", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 66–69, ISBN 0-521-65236-7
- Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (2): 255–259, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373
- Ohala, John; Lorentz, James (1977), "Story of [w]: An exercise in the phonetic explanation for sound patterns" (PDF), Berkeley Linguistics Society annual meeting 3 proceedings, pp. 577–599, archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-03-26, retrieved 2022-07-12
- Pukui, Mary Kawena; Elbert, Samuel H. (1986), Hawaiian Dictionary, Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, ISBN 0-8248-0703-0
- Rogers, Derek; d'Arcangeli, Luciana (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (1): 117–121, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001628
- Šuštaršič, Rastislav; Komar, Smiljana; Petek, Bojan (1999), "Slovene", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 135–139, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004874, ISBN 0-521-65236-7, S2CID 249404451
- Thompson, Laurence (1959), "Saigon phonemics", Language, 35 (3): 454–476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232
- Watson, Janet (2002), The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, New York: Oxford University Press
- Masica, Colin (1991). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-29944-2.