A voiced labiodental fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the "v" sound in "vase". The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .

The sound is similar to voiced alveolar fricative in that it is familiar to most European speakers but is a fairly uncommon sound cross-linguistically, occurring in approximately 21.1% of languages. Moreover, most languages that have also have and similarly to , the overwhelming majority of languages with are languages of Europe, Africa, or Western Asia, although the similar labiodental approximant is also common in India. The presence of and absence of , 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 may pronounce it as (Korean and Japanese), or / (Cantonese and Mandarin), and thus be unable to distinguish between a number of English minimal pairs.

In certain languages, such as Danish, Faroese, Icelandic or Norwegian the voiced labiodental fricative is in a free variation with the labiodental approximant.

Features

Features of a voiced labiodental fricative:

Occurrence

{| class="wikitable"

! colspan="2" | Language !! Word !! IPA !! Meaning !! Notes

|-

| colspan="2" | Abkhaz || || || 'Europe' || See Abkhaz phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Adyghe || / || || 'oar' ||

|-

| colspan="2" | Afrikaans || || || 'to be' || See Afrikaans phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Albanian || || || 'case' ||

|-

| rowspan="3" | Arabic || Algerian || || || 'gold' || See Arabic phonology

|-

| Armenian || Eastern || / || || 'six' ||

|-

| colspan="2" | Assyrian|| / || || 'book'|| Only in the Urmia dialects. is also predominantly used. Corresponds to in the other varieties.

|-

| Bai || Dali || ? || || 'fish' ||

|-

| colspan="2" | Bulgarian || / || || 'water' || See Bulgarian phonology

|-

| colspan="2" |Bengali

|

|

|'vote'

|Only occurs in loanwords. See Bengali phonology

|-

| rowspan="4" | Catalan || Alguerese

|-

| Southern Catalonia || || || || Has both plain and labialized.

|-

| Danish || Standard || || || 'know(s)' || Most often an approximant .

|-

| rowspan="3" | English || All dialects || valve || || 'valve' || See English phonology

|-

| African American || rowspan="2" | breathe || || rowspan="2" | 'breathe' || rowspan="2" | Does not occur word-initially. See th-fronting

|-

| Cockney ||

|-

| colspan="2" | Esperanto || || || 'wound' || See Esperanto phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Ewe || || || 'he is evil' ||

|-

| colspan="2" | Faroese || || || 'valve' || See French phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Georgian || || || 'narrow' ||

|-

| colspan="2" | German || || || 'guard' || See Standard German phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Greek || / || || 'varnish' || See Modern Greek phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Hebrew || || || 'back' || See Modern Hebrew phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Hindi || || || 'fast' || See Hindustani phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Hmong || / || || 'king', 'vang clan last name'

|-

| colspan="2" | Hungarian || || || 'danger' || See Hungarian phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Irish || || || 'home' || See Irish phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Italian || || || 'miserly' (f. pl.) || See Italian phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Judaeo-Spanish || || || 'nine' ||

|-

| colspan="2" | Kabardian || / / || || 'star' || Corresponds to in Adyghe

|-

| colspan="2" | Macedonian || / || || 'water' || See Macedonian phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Malayalam || വിയർപ്പ് / viyarpp`|| || 'sweat' ||Usually pronounced as by most speakers. See Malayalam phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Maltese || || || 'yes' ||

|-

| Norwegian || Urban East || || || 'bag' || See Polish phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Portuguese || || || 'town', 'village' || See Portuguese phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Romanian || || || 'wave' || See Romanian phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Russian || / || || 'hair' || Contrasts with palatalized form. May be a lenited fricative or an approximant instead. || || || 'height' || Appears only in syllable onset before voiced obstruents; the usual realization of is an approximant . || Standard || || || 'philosopher goes' || Allophone of before voiced consonants. || All dialects|| || || 'Afghan' || Allophone of before voiced consonants. See Spanish phonology

|-

|Chilean|| nuevo|| []|| 'new' || Allophone of ; pronounced as in other dialects.

|-

| colspan="2" | Swedish || || || 'wall' || See Swedish phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Turkish || || || 'due date' || The main allophone of ; realized as bilabial in certain contexts. || || || || || Has both plain and nasalized. || || || 'and' || In southern dialects, is in free variation with . See Vietnamese phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | West Frisian || || || 'to weave' || Never occurs in word-initial positions. See West Frisian phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Welsh || || || 'I' || See Welsh phonology

|-

| colspan="2" | Yi || / || || 'intestines' ||

|}

See also

  • Index of phonetics articles

Notes

References

  • <!-- Wells 1982 -->