Voiceless labialized velar approximant

The voiceless labialized velar (labiovelar) approximant (traditionally called a voiceless labiovelar fricative) is a type of consonantal sound, used in spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʍ⟩ (a rotated lowercase letter ⟨w⟩) or ⟨w̥⟩.

Voiceless labialized velar approximant
ʍ
IPA Number169
Encoding
Entity (decimal)ʍ
Unicode (hex)U+028D
X-SAMPAW
Braille
Audio sample
source · help

[ʍ] is generally classed as a fricative, but in English, the language for which the letter ⟨ʍ⟩ is primarily used, it is sometimes called a voiceless approximant, equivalent to [w̥] or [hw̥]. The symbol is rarely appropriated for a labialized voiceless velar fricative, [xʷ], in other languages.

Features

Features of the voiceless labial-velar approximant:

  • Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
  • 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.

Occurrence
Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
ChineseTaiwanese Hokkien 沃花/ak-hue [ʔak̚˥ʔ ʍeː˥] '(to) water flowers'
Cornish whath/hwath [ʍæːθ] 'yet' See Cornish phonology
Danish Jutish hvor [ʍɔr] and variations 'where' Generally transcribed as [hw-] in Danish dialectology.
Old, Middle and Early Modern Danish Modern Danish spelling has retained the mute h in initial hv- and hj-. See Danish phonology
English Conservative Received Pronunciation[1] whine [ʍaɪ̯n] 'whine' Commonly transcribed as /hw/ for simplicity; contrasts with /w/. In General American[2] and New Zealand English[3][4] only some speakers maintain the distinction; in Europe, mostly heard in Irish and Scottish accents.[1] See English phonology and phonological history of wh.
Cultivated South African[5]
Conservative General American[2][6]
Irish[5][7][8] [ʍʌɪ̯n]
Scottish[5][9][10][11]
Southern American[12] [ʍäːn]
New Zealand[3][4][9][13] [ʍɑe̯n]
Hupa tł'iwh [t͡ɬʼiʍ] 'snake' Contrasts with /w/ and /xʷ/
Italian Tuscan[14] la qualifica [lä ʍäˈliːfihä] 'the qualification' Intervocalic allophone of /kw/. See Italian phonology
Kham Gamale Kham[15] ह्वा [ʍɐ] 'tooth'
Nahuatl Cuauhtēmallān [kʷaʍteːmalːaːn] 'Guatemala' Allophone of /w/ before voiceless consonants
Slovene[16][17] vse [ˈʍsɛ] 'everything' Allophone of /ʋ/ in the syllable onset before voiceless consonants, in free variation with a vowel [u]. Voiced [w] before voiced consonants.[16][17] See Slovene phonology
Washo Wáʔi [ˈw̥aʔi] 'he's the one who's doing it'
Welsh Southern Colloquial chwe [ʍeː] 'six' See Welsh phonology

See also

Notes
  1. "Received Pronunciation Phonology".
  2. Rogers (2000), p. 120.
  3. Rogers (2000), p. 117.
  4. "Australian English and New Zealand English" (PDF). p. 9. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 April 2014.
  5. Lass (2002), p. 121.
  6. "North American English: General Accents" (PDF). Universität Stuttgart - Institut für Linguistik. p. 6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 April 2014.
  7. Wells (1982), p. 432.
  8. "Irish English and Ulster English" (PDF). pp. 4 and 7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 April 2014.
  9. McMahon (2002), p. 31.
  10. Wells (1982), p. 408.
  11. "Scottish Standard English and Scots" (PDF). p. 6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 April 2014.
  12. Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006).
  13. Wells (1982), p. 610.
  14. Hall (1944:75)
  15. Wilde, Christopher P. (2016). "Gamale Kham phonology revisited, with Devanagari-based orthography and lexicon". Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. ISSN 1836-6821.
  16. Šuštaršič, Komar & Petek (1999:136)
  17. Greenberg (2006:18)

References
  • Greenberg, Mark L. (2006), A Short Reference Grammar of Standard Slovene, Kansas: University of Kansas
  • Hall, Robert A. Jr. (1944). "Italian phonemes and orthography". Italica. American Association of Teachers of Italian. 21 (2): 72–82. doi:10.2307/475860. JSTOR 475860.
  • Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2006), The Atlas of North American English, Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter, ISBN 3-11-016746-8
  • Lass, Roger (2002), "South African English", in Mesthrie, Rajend (ed.), Language in South Africa, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521791052
  • McMahon, April (2002), An Introduction to English Phonology, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd, ISBN 0 7486 1252 1
  • Rogers, Henry (2000), The Sounds of Language: An Introduction to Phonetics, Essex: Pearson Education Limited, ISBN 978-0-582-38182-7
  • 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
  • Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English. Volume 1: An Introduction (pp. i–xx, 1–278), Volume 3: Beyond the British Isles (pp. i–xx, 467–674). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-52129719-2, 0-52128541-0.
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