Voiced labiodental fricative

Voiced labiodental fricative
v
IPA number	129
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	v
Unicode (hex)	U+0076
X-SAMPA	v
Kirshenbaum	v
Braille
Sound
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The voiced labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨v⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is v.

Although this is a familiar sound to most European listeners, it is cross-linguistically a fairly uncommon sound, being only a quarter as frequent as [w]. The presence of [v] and absence of [w], along with the presence of otherwise unknown front rounded vowels [y, ø, œ], is a very distinctive areal feature of European languages and those of adjacent areas of Siberia and Central Asia. Speakers of East Asian languages that lack this sound tend to pronounce it as [p] (Mandarin), [b] (Japanese), or [f]/[w] (Cantonese), thus failing to distinguish a number of English minimal pairs.

Some scholars^[1] use ⟨v⟩ to transcribe the labiodental approximant, which in official IPA is transcribed ⟨ʋ⟩. This does not happen in rare cases when a language contrasts the labiodental approximant with the voiced labiodental fricative, e.g. in case of Northern Standard Dutch.

Features

Features of the voiced labiodental fricative:

• Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.

• 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.

• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Abkhaz		европа	[evˈropʼa]	'Europe'	See Abkhaz phonology
Afrikaans		wees	[ˈveə̯s]	'to be'	See Afrikaans phonology
Albanian		valixhe	[vaˈlidʒɛ]	'case'
Arabic	Siirt[2]	ذهب	[vaˈhab]	'gold'	See Arabic phonology
Armenian	Eastern[3]	վեց	[vɛtsʰ]	'six'
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic		ktava	[kta:va]	'book'	Only in the Urmia dialects. [ʋ] is also predominantly used. Corresponds to [w] in the other varieties.
Bai	Dali	?	[ŋv˩˧]	'fish'
Bulgarian		вода	[vɔda]	'water'	See Bulgarian phonology
Catalan	Balearic[4]	viu	[ˈviw]	'live'	See Catalan phonology
	Valencian[5]
	southern Catalonia[5]
Chechen		вашa / vaṣa	[vaʃa]	'brother'
Czech		voda	[voda]	'water'	See Czech phonology
Danish	Standard[6]	véd	[ve̝ːˀð̠˕ˠ]	'know(s)'	Most often an approximant [ʋ].[7] See Danish phonology
Dutch	All dialects	wraak	[vraːk]	'revenge'	Allophone of /ʋ/ before /r/. See Dutch phonology
	Most dialects	vreemd	[vreːmt]	'strange'	Often devoiced to [f] by speakers from the Netherlands. See Dutch phonology
	Standard[8]
English		valve	[væɫv]	'valve'	See English phonology
Ewe[9]		?	[évlɔ]	'he is evil'
Faroese		røða	[ˈɹøːva]	'speech'
French[10]		valve	[valv]	'valve'	See French phonology
Georgian[11]		ვიწრო	[ˈvitsʼɾo]	'narrow'
German		Wächter	[ˈvɛçtɐ]	'guard'	See German phonology
Greek		βερνίκι verníki	[ve̞rˈnici]	'varnish'	See Modern Greek phonology
Hebrew		גב	[ɡav]	'back'	See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindi[12]		व्रत	[vrət̪]	'fast'	See Hindustani phonology
Hungarian		veszély	[vɛseːj]	'danger'	See Hungarian phonology
Irish		bhaile	[vaːlə]	'home'	See Irish phonology
Italian[13]		avare	[aˈvare]	'miserly' (f.pl.)	See Italian phonology
Judaeo-Spanish		mueve	[ˈmwɛvɛ]	'nine'
Kabardian		зэвы	[zavə]	'narrow'	Corresponds to [ʐʷ] in Adyghe
Macedonian		вода	[vɔda]	'water'	See Macedonian phonology
Maltese		iva	[iva]	'yes'
Occitan	Auvergnat	vol	[vɔl]	'flight'	See Occitan phonology
	Limousin
	Provençal
Polish[14]		wór	[vur]	'bag'	See Polish phonology
Portuguese[15]		vila	[ˈvilɐ]	'hamlet', 'town', 'villa'	Historical Galician-Portuguese /β/ merged with /b/ in Galician and inland Northern Portuguese dialects, and shifted to /v/ in other dialects. See Portuguese phonology
Romanian		val	[val]	'wave'	See Romanian phonology
Russian[16]		волосы	[ˈvoləsɨ]	'hair'	Contrasts with palatalized form. See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatian[17]		гроф би / grof bi	[ɡrô̞v bi]	'the earl would'	Allophone of /f/ before voiced consonants.[17] See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Slovak		voda	[voda]	'water'
Spanish[18]		afgano	[ävˈɣ̞äno̞]	'Afghan'	Allophone of /f/ before voiced consonants. See Spanish phonology
Swedish		vägg	[ˈvɛɡː]	'wall'	See Swedish phonology
Turkish		cetvel	[dʒetvæl]	'ruler'	Allophone of /ʋ/ after voiceless consonants. See Turkish phonology
Ukrainian		вона	[vɔˈnɑ]	'she'	See Ukrainian phonology
Vietnamese[19]		và	[vaː˨˩]	'and'	In southern dialects, is in free variation with [j]. See Vietnamese phonology
Welsh		fi	[vi]	'I'
West Frisian		weevje	[ˈʋeːvjə]	'to weave'	Never occurs in word-initial positions
Wu Chinese		饭	[vɛ]	'cooked rice'
Yi		ꃶ vu	[vu˧]	'intestines'

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

References

Bibliography

International Phonetic Alphabet   IPA topics IPA International Phonetic Association History of the IPA Extensions to the IPA Kiel convention (1989) Journal of the IPA (JIPA) Naming conventions Phonetics Diacritics Segments Tone letter Place of articulation Manner of articulation Special topics Case variants of IPA letters Handwritten IPA Obsolete and nonstandard symbols IPA chart for English dialects Encodings SAMPA X-SAMPA Kirshenbaum TIPA Phonetic symbols in Unicode WorldBet IPA Braille   Consonants IPA pulmonic consonantschart image • audio Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Radical Glottal ↓ Manner Bilabial Labio­dental Dental Alveolar Palato­alveolar Retroflex Alveolopalatal Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Epiglottal Nasal m̥ m ɱ n̥ n ɳ̊ ɳ ɲ̊ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ Stop p b p̪ b̪ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Sibilant fricative s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ Non-sibilant fricative ɸ β f v θ ð θ̱ ð̠ ɹ̠̊˔ ɹ̠˔ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Approximant ʋ ɹ ɻ̊ ɻ j̊ j ɰ̊ ɰ Flap or tap ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾ̥ ɾ ɽ̊ ɽ ɢ̆ ʡ̯ Trill ʙ r̥ r ɽ͡r̥ ɽ͡r ʀ̥ ʀ ᴙ * Lateral fricative ɬ ɮ ꞎ * ʎ̥˔ ʎ̝ ʟ̝̊ ʟ̝ Lateral approximant l̥ l ɭ̊ ɭ ʎ̥ ʎ ʟ ʟ̠ Lateral flap ɺ ɺ̢ * ʎ̯ ʟ̆ Non-pulmonic consonants Clicks ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ ‼ ʞ ʘ̃ ʘ̃ˀ ʘ͡q ʘ͡qʼ Implosives ɓ̥ ɓ ɗ̥ ɗ ᶑ ʄ̊ ʄ ɠ ʛ Ejectives pʼ t̪ʼ tʼ ʈʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ɬʼ ʃʼ ʂʼ ɕʼ xʼ χʼ tsʼ tɬʼ cʎ̝̥ʼ tʃʼ ʈʂʼ kxʼ kʟ̝̊ʼ qχʼ Affricates p̪f b̪v ts dz tθ dð tʃ dʒ tɕ dʑ ʈʂ ɖʐ tɬ dɮ cç ɟʝ cʎ̝̥ kx kʟ̝̊ ɡʟ̝ qχ Co-articulated consonants Continuants ʍ w ɥ ɧ Occlusives k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m — These tables contain phonetic symbols, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] — Where symbols appear in pairs, left–right represent the voiceless–voiced consonants. — Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged to be impossible. — Symbols marked with an asterisk (*) are not defined in the IPA. Chart image Pulmonics Non-pulmonics Affricates Co-articulated   Vowels Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back Close •iy •ɨʉ •ɯu •ɪʏ •ɪ̈ʊ̈ ʊ •eø •ɘɵ •ɤo •e̞ø̞ •əɵ̞ •ɤ̞o̞ •ɛœ •ɜɞ •ʌɔ •æ ɐ •aɶ •äɒ̈ •ɑɒ Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open IPA help • chart •  chart with audio • view