Voiced labiodental fricative

Consonantal sound represented by ⟨v⟩ in IPA

Voiced labiodental fricative
v
IPA Number	129
Audio sample
source · help
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.

The sound is similar to voiced alveolar fricative /z/ in that it is familiar to most European speakers^{[citation needed]} but is a fairly uncommon sound cross-linguistically, occurring in approximately 21.1% of languages.^[1] Moreover, most languages that have /z/ also have /v/ and similarly to /z/, the overwhelming majority of languages with [v] are languages of Europe, Africa, or Western Asia, although the similar labiodental approximant /ʋ/ is also common in India. 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.^{[citation needed]} Speakers of East Asian languages that lack this sound may pronounce it as [b] (Korean and Japanese), or [f]/[w] (Cantonese and Mandarin), and thus be unable to distinguish between a number of English minimal pairs.^{[citation needed]}

In certain languages, such as Danish,^[2] Faroese,^[3] Icelandic or Norwegian^[4] the voiced labiodental fricative is in a free variation with the labiodental approximant.

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 intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Abkhaz		европа	[evˈropʼa]	'Europe'	See Abkhaz phonology
Afrikaans		wees	[vɪəs]	'to be'	See Afrikaans phonology
Albanian		valixhe	[vaˈlidʒɛ]	'case'
Arabic	Algerian^[5]	كاڥي‎	[kavi]	'ataxy'	See Arabic phonology
	Hejazi	فيروس	[vajˈruːs]	'virus'	Only used in loanwords, transcribed and pronounced as [f] by many speakers.
	Siirt^[5]	ذهب	[vaˈhab]	'gold'	See Arabic phonology
Armenian	Eastern^[6]	վեց	[vɛtsʰ]^ⓘ	'six'
Assyrian		ܟܬܒ̣ܐ ctava	[ctaːva]	'book'	Only in the Urmia dialects. [ʋ] is also predominantly used. Corresponds to [w] in the other varieties.
Bai	Dali	?	[ŋv˩˧]	'fish'
Bulgarian		вода	[voda]	'water'	See Bulgarian phonology
Catalan	Alguerese^[7]	vell	[ˈveʎ]	'old'	See Catalan phonology
	Balearic^[8] ^[7]
	Southern Catalonia^[9]
	Valencian^[9]^[7]
Chechen		вашa / vaşa	[vaʃa]	'brother'
Chinese	Wu	饭	[vɛ]	'cooked rice'
Chinese	Sichuanese	五	[vu˥˧]	'five'	Corresponds to /w/ in standard Mandarin.
Czech		voda	[ˈvodä]	'water'	See Czech phonology
Danish	Standard^[10]	véd	[ve̝ːˀð̠˕ˠ]	'know(s)'	Most often an approximant [ʋ].^[2] 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^[11]	vreemd	[vreːmt]	'strange'
English	All dialects	valve	[væɫv]^ⓘ^{[citation needed]}	'valve'	See English phonology
	African American^[12]	breathe	[bɹiːv]	'breathe'	Does not occur word-initially. See th-fronting
	Cockney^[13]	breathe	[bɹəi̯v]	'breathe'	Does not occur word-initially. See th-fronting
Esperanto		vundo	[ˈvundo]	'wound'	See Esperanto phonology
Ewe^[14]		evlo	[évló]	'he is evil'
Faroese^[3]		veður	[ˈveːʋuɹ]	'speech'	Word-initial allophone of /v/, in free variation with an approximant [ʋ].^[3] See Faroese phonology
French^[15]		valve	[valv]	'valve'	See French phonology
Georgian^[16]		ვიწრო	[ˈvitsʼɾo]	'narrow'
German		Wächter	[ˈvɛçtɐ]	'guard'	See Standard German phonology
Greek		βερνίκι verníki	[ve̞rˈnici]	'varnish'	See Modern Greek phonology
Hebrew		גב	[ɡav]	'back'	See Modern Hebrew phonology
Hindi^[17]		व्रत	[vrət̪]	'fast'	See Hindustani phonology
Hungarian		veszély	[vɛseːj]	'danger'	See Hungarian phonology
Irish		bhaile	[vaːlə]	'home'	See Irish phonology
Italian^[18]		avare	[aˈvare]	'miserly' (f. pl.)	See Italian phonology
Judaeo-Spanish		mueve	[ˈmwɛvɛ]	'nine'
Kabardian		вагъуэ	[vaːʁʷa]^ⓘ	'star'	Corresponds to [ʒʷ] in Adyghe
Macedonian		вода	[vɔda]	'water'	See Macedonian phonology
Maltese		iva	[iva]	'yes'
Norwegian	Urban East^[4]	venn	[ve̞nː]	'friend'	Allophone of /ʋ/ before a pause and in emphatic speech.^[4] See Norwegian phonology
Occitan	Auvergnat	vol	[vɔl]	'flight'	See Occitan phonology
	Limousin
	Provençal
Persian	Western	ورزش	[varzeʃ]	'sport'	See Persian phonology
Polish^[19]		wór	[vur]^ⓘ	'bag'	See Polish phonology
Portuguese^[20]		vila	[ˈvilɐ]	'town'	See Portuguese phonology
Romanian		val	[väl]	'wave'	See Romanian phonology
Russian^[21]^[22]		волосы	[ˈvʷo̞ɫ̪əs̪ɨ̞]	'hair'	Contrasts with palatalized form; may be an approximant [ʋ] instead.^[22] See Russian phonology
Serbo-Croatian		voda	[vɔ'da]	'water'	See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Slovak^[23]		vzrast	[vzräst]	'height'	Appears only in syllable onset before voiced obstruents; the usual realization of /v/ is an approximant [ʋ].^[23] See Slovak phonology
Slovene^[24]	Standard	filozof gre	[filoˈz̪ôːv ˈɡɾěː]	'philosopher goes'	Allophone of /f/ before voiced consonants.^[24] See Slovene phonology
Slovene^[24]	Some dialects	voda	[ˈvɔ̀ːd̪á]	'water'	Instead of /ʋ/. See Slovene phonology
Spanish^[25]		afgano	[ävˈɣ̞äno̞]	'Afghan'	Allophone of /f/ before voiced consonants. See Spanish phonology
Swedish		vägg	[ˈvɛɡː]	'wall'	See Swedish phonology
Turkish^[26]		vade	[väːˈd̪ɛ]	'due date'	The main allophone of /v/; realized as bilabial [β ~ β̞] in certain contexts.^[26] See Turkish phonology
Tyap		vak	[vag]	'road'
Urdu		ورزش	[vəɾzɪʃ]	‘exercise’	See Hindustani phonology
Vietnamese^[27]		và	[vaː˨˩]	'and'	In southern dialects, is in free variation with [j]. See Vietnamese phonology
West Frisian		weevje	[ˈʋeɪ̯vjə]	'to weave'	Never occurs in word-initial positions. See West Frisian phonology
Welsh		fi	[vi]	'I'	See Welsh phonology
Yi		ꃶ/vu	[vu˧]	'intestines'

Notes

^ "UPSID Segment Frequency". Retrieved 13 February 2023.
^ ^a ^b Basbøll (2005:66)
^ ^a ^b ^c Árnason (2011:115)
^ ^a ^b ^c Kristoffersen (2000:74)
^ ^a ^b Watson (2002:15)
^ Dum-Tragut (2009:18)
^ ^a ^b ^c "La /v/ labiodental" (PDF). IEC. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
^ Carbonell & Llisterri (1992:53)
^ ^a ^b Wheeler (2002:13) harvcoltxt error: no target: CITEREFWheeler2002 (help)
^ Basbøll (2005:62)
^ Gussenhoven (1992:45)
^ McWhorter (2001), pp. 148. sfnp error: no target: CITEREFMcWhorter2001 (help)
^ Wells (1982), p. 328. sfnp error: no target: CITEREFWells1982 (help)
^ Ladefoged (2005:156)
^ Fougeron & Smith (1993:73)
^ Shosted & Chikovani (2006:255)
^ Janet Pierrehumbert, Rami Nair, Volume Editor: Bernard Laks (1996), Implications of Hindi Prosodic Structure (Current Trends in Phonology: Models and Methods) (PDF), European Studies Research Institute, University of Salford Press, 1996, ISBN 978-1-901471-02-1, archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-13, retrieved 2010-10-19 {{citation}}: |author= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ Rogers & d'Arcangeli (2004:117)
^ Jassem (2003:103)
^ Cruz-Ferreira (1995:91)
^ Padgett (2003:42)
^ ^a ^b Yanushevskaya & Bunčić (2015:223)
^ ^a ^b Hanulíková & Hamann (2010:374)
^ ^a ^b Herrity (2000:16)
^ http://www.uclm.es/profesorado/nmoreno/compren/material/2006apuntes_fonetica.pdf Archived 2012-03-07 at the Wayback Machine; http://plaza.ufl.edu/lmassery/Consonantes%20oclusivasreviewlaurie.doc
^ ^a ^b Göksel & Kerslake (2005:6))
^ Thompson (1959:458–461)

References

Árnason, Kristján (2011). The Phonology of Icelandic and Faroese. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199229314.
Basbøll, Hans (2005), The Phonology of Danish, Taylor & Francis, ISBN 0-203-97876-5
Carbonell, Joan F.; Llisterri, Joaquim (1992), "Catalan", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 22 (1–2): 53–56, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004618, S2CID 249411809
Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 25 (2): 90–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005223, S2CID 249414876
Dum-Tragut, Jasmine (2009), Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Fougeron, Cecile; Smith, Caroline L. (1993), "French", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 23 (2): 73–76, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004874, S2CID 249404451
Göksel, Asli; Kerslake, Celia (2005), Turkish: a comprehensive grammar, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415114943
Gussenhoven, Carlos (1992), "Dutch", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 22 (2): 45–47, doi:10.1017/S002510030000459X, S2CID 243772965
Hanulíková, Adriana; Hamann, Silke (2010), "Slovak" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 40 (3): 373–378, doi:10.1017/S0025100310000162
Herrity, Peter (2000), Slovene: A Comprehensive Grammar, London: Routledge, ISBN 0415231485
Jassem, Wiktor (2003), "Polish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (1): 103–107, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001191
Kristoffersen, Gjert (2000), The Phonology of Norwegian, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-823765-5
Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell
Landau, Ernestina; Lončarić, Mijo; Horga, Damir; Škarić, Ivo (1999), "Croatian", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 66–69, ISBN 0-521-65236-7
Padgett, Jaye (2003), "Contrast and Post-Velar Fronting in Russian", Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 21 (1): 39–87, doi:10.1023/A:1021879906505, S2CID 13470826
Rogers, Derek; d'Arcangeli, Luciana (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 34 (1): 117–121, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001628
Shosted, Ryan K.; Chikovani, Vakhtang (2006), "Standard Georgian" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 36 (2): 255–264, doi:10.1017/S0025100306002659
Thompson, Laurence (1959), "Saigon phonemics", Language, 35 (3): 454–476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232
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
Yanushevskaya, Irena; Bunčić, Daniel (2015), "Russian" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 45 (2): 221–228, doi:10.1017/S0025100314000395

External links

List of languages with [v] on PHOIBLE

International Phonetic Alphabet (chart)

IPA topics

IPA	International Phonetic Association History of the alphabet Extensions for disordered speech (extIPA) Voice Quality Symbols (VoQS) Journal of the IPA (JIPA)
Special topics	Cursive forms Case variants Obsolete and nonstandard symbols Naming conventions Sinological extensions World Orthography IPA chart for English dialects
Encodings	ASCII encodings SAMPA X-SAMPA Kirshenbaum TIPA Phonetic symbols in Unicode IPA number IPA Braille

Consonants

Pulmonic consonants

Place →	Labial					Coronal										Dorsal					Laryngeal
Manner ↓	Bilabial		Labiodental		Linguolabial		Dental		Alveolar		Postalveolar		Retroflex		Palatal		Velar		Uvular		Pharyngeal/epiglottal		Glottal
Nasal	m̥	m	ɱ̊	ɱ		n̼			n̥	n			ɳ̊	ɳ	ɲ̊	ɲ	ŋ̊	ŋ	ɴ̥	ɴ
Plosive	p	b	p̪	b̪	t̼	d̼			t	d			ʈ	ɖ	c	ɟ	k	ɡ	q	ɢ	ʡ		ʔ
Sibilant affricate									ts	dz	t̠ʃ	d̠ʒ	tʂ	dʐ	tɕ	dʑ
Non-sibilant affricate	pɸ	bβ	p̪f	b̪v			t̪θ	d̪ð	tɹ̝̊	dɹ̝	t̠ɹ̠̊˔	d̠ɹ̠˔			cç	ɟʝ	kx	ɡɣ	qχ	ɢʁ	ʡʜ	ʡʢ	ʔh
Sibilant fricative									s	z	ʃ	ʒ	ʂ	ʐ	ɕ	ʑ
Non-sibilant fricative	ɸ	β	f	v	θ̼	ð̼	θ	ð	θ̠	ð̠	ɹ̠̊˔	ɹ̠˔	ɻ̊˔	ɻ˔	ç	ʝ	x	ɣ	χ	ʁ	ħ	ʕ	h	ɦ
Approximant				ʋ						ɹ				ɻ		j		ɰ						ʔ̞
Tap/flap		ⱱ̟		ⱱ		ɾ̼			ɾ̥	ɾ			ɽ̊	ɽ						ɢ̆		ʡ̆
Trill	ʙ̥	ʙ							r̥	r			ɽ̊r̥	ɽr					ʀ̥	ʀ	ʜ	ʢ
Lateral affricate									tɬ	dɮ			tꞎ	d𝼅	c𝼆	ɟʎ̝	k𝼄	ɡʟ̝
Lateral fricative									ɬ	ɮ			ꞎ	𝼅	𝼆	ʎ̝	𝼄	ʟ̝
Lateral approximant										l				ɭ		ʎ		ʟ		ʟ̠
Lateral tap/flap									ɺ̥	ɺ			𝼈̥	𝼈		ʎ̆		ʟ̆

IPA help
audio
full chart
template

Symbols to the right in a cell are voiced, to the left are voiceless. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible.

Non-pulmonic consonants

		BL	LD	D	A	PA	RF	P	V	U	EG
Ejective	Stop	pʼ			tʼ		ʈʼ	cʼ	kʼ	qʼ	ʡʼ
	Affricate		p̪fʼ	t̪θʼ	tsʼ	t̠ʃʼ	tʂʼ	tɕʼ	kxʼ	qχʼ
	Fricative	ɸʼ	fʼ	θʼ	sʼ	ʃʼ	ʂʼ	ɕʼ	xʼ	χʼ
	Lateral affricate				tɬʼ			c𝼆ʼ	k𝼄ʼ	q𝼄ʼ
	Lateral fricative				ɬʼ
Click (top: velar; bottom: uvular)	Tenuis	kʘ qʘ		kǀ qǀ	kǃ qǃ		k𝼊 q𝼊	kǂ qǂ
	Voiced	ɡʘ ɢʘ		ɡǀ ɢǀ	ɡǃ ɢǃ		ɡ𝼊 ɢ𝼊	ɡǂ ɢǂ
	Nasal	ŋʘ ɴʘ		ŋǀ ɴǀ	ŋǃ ɴǃ		ŋ𝼊 ɴ𝼊	ŋǂ ɴǂ	ʞ
	Tenuis lateral				kǁ qǁ
	Voiced lateral				ɡǁ ɢǁ
	Nasal lateral				ŋǁ ɴǁ
Implosive	Voiced	ɓ			ɗ		ᶑ	ʄ	ɠ	ʛ
Implosive	Voiceless	ɓ̥			ɗ̥		ᶑ̊	ʄ̊	ɠ̊	ʛ̥

IPA help
audio
full chart
template

Co-articulated consonants

Labial–alveolar

Labial–velar

Fricative/approximant

ɥ̊

Labial–palatal

Labial–velar

Sj-sound (variable)

Lateral approximant

Velarized alveolar

Labial–velar

Labial–alveolar

IPA help
full chart
template

Other	Nasal labial–velar approximant [w̃] Nasal palatal approximant [j̃] Voiceless bidental fricative [h̪͆] Voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental stop [t̪ʙ̥] Voiceless nasal glottal approximant [h̃]