Voiced labiodental fricative

Voiced labiodental fricative
v
IPA Number	129
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	v
Unicode (hex)	U+0076
X-SAMPA	v
Braille

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 and Middle Eastern 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], 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.

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	ذهب	[vaˈhab]	'gold'	See Arabic phonology
Armenian	Eastern	վեց	<phonos file="vɛtsʰ.ogg">[vɛtsʰ]</phonos>	'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	viu	[ˈviw]	'live'	See Catalan phonology
	Southern Catalonia
	Valencian
Chechen		вашa / vaṣa	[vaʃa]	'brother'
Chinese	Wu	饭	[vɛ]	'cooked rice'
Czech		voda	[voda]	'water'	See Czech phonology
Danish	Standard	véd	[ve̝ːˀð̠˕ˠ]	'know(s)'	Most often an approximant [ʋ]. 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
English		valve	[væɫv]	'valve'	See English phonology
Ewe		evlo	[évló]	'he is evil'
Faroese		veður	[ˈveːʋuɹ]	'speech'	Word-initial allophone of /v/, in free variation with an approximant [ʋ]. See Faroese phonology
French		valve	[valv]	'valve'	See French phonology
Georgian		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		व्रत	[vrət̪]	'fast'	See Hindustani phonology
Hungarian		veszély	[vɛseːj]	'danger'	See Hungarian phonology
Irish		bhaile	[vaːlə]	'home'	See Irish phonology
Italian		avare	[aˈvare]	'miserly' (f.pl.)	See Italian phonology
Judaeo-Spanish		mueve	[ˈmwɛvɛ]	'nine'
Kabardian		вагъуэ	<phonos file="Vaːʁʷa.ogg">[vaːʁʷa]</phonos>	'star'	Corresponds to [ʒʷ] in Adyghe
Macedonian		вода	[vɔda]	'water'	See Macedonian phonology
Maltese		iva	[iva]	'yes'
Norwegian	Standard Eastern	venn	[vɛ̝nː]	'friend'	Allophone of /ʋ/ before a pause and in emphatic speech. See Norwegian phonology
Occitan	Auvergnat	vol	[vɔl]	'flight'	See Occitan phonology
	Limousin
	Provençal
Polish		wór	<phonos file="Pl-wór.ogg">[vur]</phonos>	'bag'	See Polish phonology
Portuguese		vila	[ˈvilɐ]	'town'	See Portuguese phonology
Romanian		val	[val]	'wave'	See Romanian phonology
Russian		волосы	[ˈvoləsɨ]	'hair'	Contrasts with palatalized form. See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatian		гроф би / grof bi	[ɡrô̞v bi]	'the earl would'	Allophone of /f/ before voiced consonants. See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Slovak		voda	<phonos file="SK-voda.ogg">[voda]</phonos>	'water'
Spanish		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
Vietnamese		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
Yi		ꃶ/vu	[vu˧]	'intestines'

See also

• Index of phonetics articles