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

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.^{citation needed} Speakers of East Asian languages which lack this sound like Mandarin tend to pronounce [v] as [p], Japanese as [b], and Cantonese as [w], 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 IPA for Afrikaans
Albanian		valixhe	[validʒɛ]	'case'
Arabic	Siirt	ذهب	[vaˈhab]	'gold'	See Arabic phonology
Armenian	Eastern	վեց	[vɛtsʰ]	'six'
Bai	Dali	?	[ŋv˩˧]	'fish'
Catalan	Balearic	viu	[ˈviw]	'live'	See Catalan phonology
	Valencian
	southern Catalonia
Chechen		вашa / vaṣa	[vaʃa]	'brother'
Czech		voda	[voda]	'water'	See Czech phonology
Dutch	All dialects	wraak	[vraːk]	'revenge'	Allophone of ʋ ~ β̞ ~ w before /r/. See Dutch phonology
	Most dialects	vreemd	[vreːmt]	'strange'	Can be devoiced to f by certain speakers, mainly those from the Netherlands. See Dutch phonology
	Standard
English		valve	[væɫv]	'valve'	See English phonology
Ewe		?	[évlɔ]	'he is evil'
Faroese		røða	[ˈɹøːva]	'speech'
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 Hindi-Urdu phonology
Hungarian		veszély	[vɛseːj]	'danger'	See Hungarian phonology
Irish		bhaile	[veːlə]	'home'	See Irish phonology
Italian		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'
Norwegian		vann	[vɑn]	'water'	See Norwegian phonology
Occitan	Auvergnat	vol	[vɔl]	'flight'	See Occitan phonology
	Limousin
	Provençal
Polish		wór	[vur]	'bag'	See Polish phonology
Portuguese		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		волосы	[ˈvoləsɨ]	'hair'	Contrasts with palatalized form. See Russian phonology
Slovak		voda	[voda]	'water'
Spanish		afgano	[ävˈɣ̞äno̞]	'Afghan'	Allophone of /f/ before voiced consonants. See Spanish phonology
Swedish		vägg	[ˈvɛɡ]	'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

• List of phonetics topics

Bibliography

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• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 25 (2): 90–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005223 
• Dum-Tragut, Jasmine (2009), Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company 
• Fougeron, Cecile; Smith, Caroline L (1993), "Illustrations of the IPA:French", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 23 (2): 73–76, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004874 
• Gussenhoven, Carlos (1992), "Dutch", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (2): 45–47, doi:10.1017/S002510030000459X 
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• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell 
• Padgett, Jaye (2003), "Contrast and Post-Velar Fronting in Russian", Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 21 (1): 39–87, doi:10.1023/A:1021879906505 
• Rogers, Derek; d'Arcangeli, Luciana (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 117–121, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001628 
• Shosted, Ryan K.; Vakhtang, Chikovani (2006), "Standard Georgian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36 (2): 255–264, doi:10.1017/S0025100306002659 
• Watson, Janet (2002), The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, New York: Oxford University Press 
• Wheeler, Max W (2005), The Phonology Of Catalan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-925814-7