A voiceless labial–velar fricative, or more accurately a voiceless labialized velar fricative and sometimes analyzed as a voiceless labial–velar approximant, is a type of consonantal sound, used in spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is or, rather ambiguously, . The letter was defined as a "voiceless " until 1979, when it was defined as a fricative with the place of articulation of the same way that is an approximant with the place of articulation of . The IPA Handbook describes as a "fricative" in the introduction, while a chapter within characterizes it as an "approximant".

There has historically been some controversy over whether a voiceless approximant could be distinct from a fricative, but more recent research distinguishes between turbulent (fricative-like) and laminar (vowel- or approximant-like) airflow in the vocal tract. English is an approximant , a labialized glottal fricative , or an sequence, not a velar fricative. Scots has been described as a velar fricative, especially in older Scots and peripheral dialects, where it is . Ladefoged and Maddieson were unable to confirm that any language has fricatives produced at two places of articulation, as the term "labial–velar" implies. They conclude that "if [ʍ] is a fricative, it is better described as a voiceless labialized velar fricative".

Features

Features of a voiceless labialized velar fricative:

Occurrence

Voiceless labial–velar fricative

{| class="wikitable"

! colspan="2" | Language

! Word

! IPA

! Meaning

! Notes

|-

| colspan="2" | Hupa

|

|

| 'his property'

| A voiceless labialized velar fricative.

|-

| colspan="2" | Kabardian

|

|

| 'five'

| In Adyghe, it is pronounced .

|-

| rowspan="2" | Kurdish

| Kurmanji (Northern)

| /

|

| 'sister'

|

|-

| Kalhori (Southern)

| /

|

| 'nice'

|

|-

| colspan="2"| Lushootseed

|

|

| 'Newhalem, Washington'

|

|-

| Persian

| Classical Persian

| /

|

| 'to want'

| In modern standard dialects of Persian, the pronunciation has evolved to a simple Voiceless velar fricative () sound.

|-

| colspan="2" | Shuswap

|

|

| 'Shuswap language'

|

|-

| Spanish

| Fast speech

| juego

|

| 'game'

| More commonly [xw]. See Spanish phonology

|-

| colspan="2" |Washo

|

| or

| 'he's the one who's doing it'

| Variously described as a labialized velar fricative or a voiceless approximant.

|}

Voiceless labial–velar approximant

{| class="wikitable"

! colspan="2" | Language

! Word

! IPA

! Meaning

! Notes

|-

| rowspan="2" | Aleut

| Atkan

|

| rowspan="2" |

| rowspan="2" | 'smoke'

|

|-

| Bering

|

|

|-

| rowspan="7" | English

| Received Pronunciation in some Irish and Scottish speakers See English phonology and pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩.

|-

| Cultivated South African

|-

| Conservative General American

|-

| Irish

| rowspan="2" |

|-

| Scottish

|-

| Southern American

|

|-

| New Zealand

|

|-

| Kham

| Gamale Kham

|

|

| 'tooth'

| Described as an approximant.

|-

| colspan="2" | Slovene

|

|

| 'everything'

| Allophone of in the syllable onset before voiceless consonants, in free variation with a vowel . Voiced before voiced consonants. See Slovene phonology.

|-

| colspan="2" |Washo

|

| or

| 'he's the one who's doing it'

| Variously described as a labialized velar fricative or a voiceless approximant.

|}

See also

  • Index of phonetics articles
  • Hwair
  • Wh (digraph)
  • Wine–whine merger

Notes

References