Voiced velar approximant

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 , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is M\.

The consonant is not present in English, but approximates to the sound of a 'g' with the throat kept open. The voiced velar approximant can in many cases be considered the semivocalic counterpart of the close back unrounded vowel . The two are almost identical featurally.  and  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 appears as an allophone of  – see below.

Some languages have the voiced pre-velar approximant, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical voiced velar approximant, though not as front as the prototypical palatal approximant.

The symbol for the velar approximant originates from , but with a vertical line. Compare  and  for the labio-palatal approximant.

Features
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  from the  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.

Occurrence 
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2" | Language !! Word !! IPA !! Meaning !! Notes
|-
| colspan="2" | Aragonese ||  ||  || 'oak tree' || Unspecified for rounding voiced velar approximant consonant; allophone of .
|-
| rowspan="4" | Astur-Leonese || Asturian ||  || || || rowspan="4" | Unspecified for rounding voiced velar approximant consonant; allophone of .
|-
| Extremaduran ||  || ||
|-
| Leonese ||  || ||
|-
| Mirandese ||  || ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Catalan ||  ||  || 'water' || Unspecified for rounding voiced velar approximant consonant; allophone of . See Catalan phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Cherokee || ᏩᏥ  ||  || 'watch' || Found only in the Western dialect. Its equivalent in other dialects is [w]. Also represented by Ꮺ, Ꮻ, Ꮼ, Ꮽ, and Ꮾ
|-
| Danish || Older speakers ||  ||  || 'tallow' || Unspecified for rounding voiced velar approximant consonant. Still used by some older speakers in high register, much more commonly than a fricative . Depending on the environment, it corresponds to ,  or  in young speakers of contemporary Standard Danish. See Danish phonology
|-
| Dutch || East Flemish || || || || Typical realization of  in western dialects.
|-
| French || Belgian ||  ||  || 'macaw' || Intervocalic allophone of  for some speakers, unless  is realized as a liaison consonant – then, most often, it is realized as a trill . See French phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Galician ||  ||  || 'water' || Unspecified for rounding voiced velar approximant consonant; allophone of . See Galician phonology
|-
| Greek || Cypriot ||  ||  || 'shop' || Allophone of .
|-
| colspan="2" | Guarani ||  ||  || 'near, close to' || Contrasts with 
|-
| colspan="2" | Hiw || ter̄og ||  || 'peace' || Phoneme realised  in onsets,  in codas. Contrasts with  and with .
|-
| colspan="2" |Ibibio || ufokọ ||  ||  || Intervocalic allophone of ; may be a uvular tap  instead.
|-
| colspan="2" | Icelandic ||  ||  || 'saga' || Unspecified for rounding voiced velar approximant consonant. See Icelandic phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Irish ||  ||  || 'nine' || Occurs only between broad consonants and front vowels. See Irish phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Korean ||  /  ||  || 'doctor' || Occurs only before . See Korean phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Mwotlap || haghag ||  || 'sit' || Realised  or . Contrasts with .
|-
| colspan="2" | Shipibo ||  ||  ||  || Allophone of  in certain high-frequency morphemes; can be realized as a fricative  instead.
|-
| colspan="2" | Spanish ||  ||  || 'to pay' || Unspecified for rounding voiced velar approximant consonant; allophone of . See Spanish phonology
|-
| Swedish || Central Standard ||  ||  || 'agronomist' || Unspecified for rounding voiced velar approximant consonant; allophone of  in casual speech. See Swedish phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Tagalog || igriega ||  || 'y (letter)' || See Tagalog phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Tiwi ||  ||  || 'we (inclusive)' ||
|-
|Vietnamese
|Southern
|gà|
|'chicken'
|Typical realization of  in other dialects. Variant is in complementary distribution before open vowels.
|}

The sound in Japanese often denoted by  in IPA notation and described as unrounded is actually pronounced with lip compression and is therefore labio-velar, albeit with acoustic differences from other labio-velar consonants.

 Relation with  and  
Some languages have a voiced velar approximant that is unspecified for rounding, and therefore cannot be considered the semivocalic equivalent of either  or its rounded counterpart . Examples of such languages are Catalan, Galician and Spanish, in which the unspecified for rounding voiced velar approximant consonant (not semivowel'') appears as an allophone of .

Eugenio Martínez Celdrán describes the voiced velar approximant consonant as follows:

There is a parallel problem with transcribing the palatal approximant.

The symbol  may also be used when the voiced velar approximant is merely an allophone of the voiced velar fricative  as, compared with , it is more similar to the symbol . The X-SAMPA equivalent of  is G_o.

The symbol  may not display properly in all browsers. In that case,  should be substituted. In broader transcriptions, the lowering diacritic may be omitted altogether, so that the symbol is rendered , i.e. as if it represented the corresponding fricative.

See also
 Index of phonetics articles

Notes

References

 
 
 
 
 
 .
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External links
 

Category:Velar consonants
Category:Pulmonic consonants
Category:Voiced oral consonants
Category:Central consonants