Voiced velar approximant should not be confused with Labio-velar approximant.
| Ipa Symbol: | ɰ |
| Ipa Number: | 154 |
| Decimal: | 624 |
| Imagefile: | IPA Unicode 0x0270.svg |
| X-Sampa: | M\ |
| Kirshenbaum: | j<vel> |
| Braille: | “ |
| Braille2: | m |
The voiced velar approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is (IPA|ɰ), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is M\.
The consonant is absent in English, but may be approximated by making pronounced as /link/ but with the tongue body lowered or pronounced as /link/ but with the lips apart. The voiced velar approximant can in many cases be considered the semivocalic counterpart of the close back unrounded vowel pronounced as /[ɯ]/. (IPA|ɰ) and (IPA|ɯ̯) with the non-syllabic diacritic are used in different transcription systems to represent the same sound.
In some languages, such as Spanish, the voiced velar approximant is an allophone of pronounced as //g// – see below.
The symbol for the velar approximant originates from (IPA|ɯ), but with a vertical line. Compare (IPA|u) and (IPA|ɥ) for the labio-palatal approximant.
Features of the voiced velar approximant:
The most common type of this approximant is glide or semivowel. The term glide emphasizes the characteristic of movement (or 'glide') of pronounced as /[ɰ]/ from the pronounced as /link/ vowel position to a following vowel position. The term semivowel emphasizes that, although the sound is vocalic in nature, it is not 'syllabic' (it does not form the nucleus of a syllable). For a description of the approximant consonant variant used e.g. in Spanish, see below.
| Language | Word | Meaning | Notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aragonese: caixi'''g'''o | pronounced as /[kajˈʃiɣ̞o̞]/ | 'oak tree' | Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of pronounced as //ɡ//. | |||
| Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of pronounced as //ɡ//. | ||||||
| Catalan; Valencian: [[Catalan orthography|ai'''g'''ua]] | pronounced as /[ˈajɣ̞wə]/ | 'water' | Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of pronounced as //ɡ//. See Catalan phonology | |||
| ᏩᏥ Cherokee: '''w'''a-tsi | pronounced as /[ɰad͡ʒi]/ | 'watch' | Found only in the Western dialect. Its equivalent in other dialects is [w]. Also represented by Ꮺ, Ꮻ, Ꮼ, Ꮽ, and Ꮾ | |||
| Older speakers | Danish: [[Danish alphabet|tal'''g''']] | pronounced as /[ˈtsʰalˀɣ̞]/ | 'tallow' | Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding. Still used by some older speakers in high register, much more commonly than a fricative pronounced as /link/. Depending on the environment, it corresponds to pronounced as /[w]/ or pronounced as /link/ in young speakers of contemporary Standard Danish. See Danish phonology | ||
| Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding. Corresponds to a fricative pronounced as /link/ in other dialects. | ||||||
| French: [[French orthography|a'''r'''a]] | pronounced as /[aɣ̞a]/ | 'macaw' | Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding. Intervocalic, word-internal allophone of pronounced as //ʀ// for some speakers. See French phonology | |||
| Galician: au'''g'''a | pronounced as /[ˈɑwɣ̞ɑ]/ | 'water' | Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of pronounced as //ɡ//. See Galician phonology | |||
| Greek, Modern (1453-);: [[Greek alphabet|μα'''γ'''αζί]] | pronounced as /[maɰaˈzi]/ | 'shop' | Allophone of pronounced as //ɣ//. | |||
| Guarani: [[Guaraní alphabet|'''g'''otyo]] | pronounced as /[ɰoˈtɨo]/ | 'near, close to' | Contrasts with pronounced as /[w]/ | |||
| Ñandewa Paulista-Paranaense | pronounced as /[adʒaˈɰa]/ | 'I cut' | Contrasts with pronounced as /link/. | |||
| ter̄og | pronounced as /[təɡ͡ʟɔɣ̞]/ | 'peace' | Contrasts with pronounced as //w// and with pronounced as //ɡ͡ʟ//. | |||
| ufokọ | pronounced as /[úfʌ̟̀ɰɔ̞]/ | Intervocalic allophone of pronounced as //k//; may be a uvular tap pronounced as /link/ instead. | ||||
| Icelandic: [[Icelandic orthography|sa'''g'''a]] | pronounced as /[ˈs̺äːɣ̞ä]/ | 'saga' | Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding. See Icelandic phonology | |||
| Irish: [[Irish orthography|n'''ao'''i]] | pronounced as /[n̪ˠɰiː]/ | 'nine' | Occurs only between broad consonants and front vowels. See Irish phonology | |||
| Korean: [[hangul|의사]] / Korean: [[Revised Romanization of Korean|'''u'''isa]] | pronounced as /[ɰisɐ]/ | 'doctor' | Occurs only before pronounced as //i//. See Korean phonology | |||
| haghag | pronounced as /[haɣ̞haɣ̞]/ | 'sit' | Contrasts with pronounced as /[w]/. | |||
| i'''g'''i | pronounced as /[i̞ɣ̞i̞]/ | Unspecified for rounding; varies between an approximant and a fricative. Allophone of pronounced as //k// in certain high-frequency morphemes. | ||||
| Spanish; Castilian: [[Spanish orthography|pa'''g'''ar]] | 'to pay' | Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of pronounced as //ɡ//. See Spanish phonology | ||||
| Central Standard | Swedish: [[Swedish alphabet|a'''g'''ronom]] | 'agronomist' | Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of pronounced as //ɡ// in casual speech. See Swedish phonology | |||
| pronounced as /[iːɡɾɪˈje̞ɣ̞ɐ]/ | 'y (letter)' | Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; intervocalic allophone of pronounced as //ɡ//. See Tagalog phonology | ||||
| nga'''g'''a | pronounced as /[ˈŋaɰa]/ | 'we (inclusive)' | ||||
| góndo'''l'''a | pronounced as /[ˈɡoŋdoɰa]/ | 'gondola' | See Venetian language | |||
| Vietnamese | Southern | gà | 'chicken' | Typical realization of pronounced as //ɡɣ/ or /ɣ// in other dialects. Variant is in complementary distribution before open vowels. | ||
| Above: | Voiced pre-velar approximant |
| Ipa Symbol: | ɰ˖ |
| Ipa Symbol2: | j˗ |
| Ipa Symbol3: | ɨ̯ |
| X-Sampa: | j- |
| Kirshenbaum: | j" |
| Language | Word | Meaning | Notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spanish; Castilian: [[Spanish orthography|se'''gu'''ir]]|italic=yes | 'to follow' | Approximant consonant. Lenited allophone of pronounced as //ɡ// before front vowels; typically transcribed in IPA with (IPA|ɣ). See Spanish phonology | ||||
| Standard prescriptive | Turkish: [[Turkish alphabet|dü'''ğ'''ün]]|italic=yes | pronounced as /[ˈd̪y̠jy̠n̪]/ | 'marriage' | Either post-palatal or palatal; phonetic realization of pronounced as //ɣ// (also transcribed as pronounced as //ɰ//) before front vowels. See Turkish phonology | ||
| Above: | Voiced velar bunched approximant |
| Ipa Symbol: | ɹ̈ |
| X-Sampa: | r\_" |
Some languages have a velar approximant that is produced with the body of the tongue bunched up at the velum and simultaneous pharyngealization. This gives rise to a type of retroflex resonance resembling pronounced as /link/. The extension to the IPA recommends the use of the "centralized" diacritic combined with the IPA sign for the alveolar approximant (as in (IPA|ɹ̈)) to distinguish the bunched realization from the prototypical apical pronounced as /link/, which may be specified as (IPA|ɹ̺). Typically, the diacritic is omitted, so that the sound is transcribed simply with (IPA|ɹ) or (IPA|ɻ) (in broader transcriptions: (IPA|r)), as if it were a coronal consonant. Just as pronounced as /[ɣ̞]/ described below, the velar bunched approximant is not specified for rounding.
In Dutch, this type of r is called Dutch; Flemish: Gooise r in Dutch; Flemish pronounced as /ˌɣoːisə ˈʔɛr/ 'Gooi r. It is named after het Gooi, a region of the Netherlands where Hilversum (the main centre for television and radio broadcasting) is located.
Features of the voiced velar bunched approximant:
The body of the tongue is bunched up at the velum, rather than just approaching it as it is the case with the prototypical velar approximant.
| Language | Word | Meaning | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Randstad varieties | Dutch; Flemish: [[Dutch orthography|maa'''r''']] | pronounced as /[ˈmaːɹ̈]/ | 'but' | Pre-velar. Common allophone of pronounced as //r// in the syllable coda, where it contrasts with pronounced as /link/. The bunching and pharyngealization may be lost in connected speech, resulting in a semivowel such as pronounced as /link/ or pronounced as /[ə̯]/. See Dutch phonology | |
| Standard Northern | Pre-velar. Common allophone of pronounced as //r// in the syllable coda, where it contrasts with pronounced as /link/. See Dutch phonology | ||||
| English: [[English orthography|'''r'''ed]] | pronounced as /[ɹ̈ʷɛd]/ | 'red' | Labialized approximant consonant. Possible realization of pronounced as //r//. Contrasts with pronounced as /link/. See Pronunciation of English /r/ | ||
| English: [[English orthography|cu'''r'''ious]] | pronounced as /[ˈkj̊ʊːɹ̈iəs]/ | 'curious' | Approximant consonant, may be labialized. Possible allophone of pronounced as //r// before front vowels. Contrasts with pronounced as /link/. See Pronunciation of English /r/ | ||
Some languages have a voiced velar approximant that is unspecified for rounding, and therefore cannot be considered the semivocalic equivalent of either pronounced as /[ɯ]/ or its rounded counterpart pronounced as /link/. Examples of such languages are Catalan, Galician and Spanish, in which the approximant consonant (not semivowel) unspecified for rounding appears as an allophone of pronounced as //ɡ//.
Eugenio Martínez Celdrán describes the voiced velar approximant consonant as follows:
There is a parallel problem with transcribing the palatal approximant.
The symbol (IPA|ɣ̞) may not display properly in all browsers. In that case, (IPA|ɣ˕) should be substituted. In broader transcriptions,[1] the lowering diacritic may be omitted altogether, so that the symbol is rendered (IPA|ɣ), i.e. as if it represented the corresponding fricative.
pronounced as /navigation/