A labialized velar or labiovelar is a

velar consonant Velar consonants are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (also known as the "velum"). Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relativel ...

that is labialized, with a -like

secondary articulation In phonetics, secondary articulation occurs when the articulation of a consonant is equivalent to the combined articulations of two or three simpler consonants, at least one of which is an approximant. The secondary articulation of such co-articu ...

. Examples are , which are pronounced like a , with rounded lips, such as the labialized voiceless velar plosive and labialized voiced velar plosive ,

obstruent An obstruent ( ) is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well ...

s being common among the sounds that undergo labialization.

Labialized velar approximants

The most common labiovelar consonant is the voiced approximant . It is normally a labialized velar, as is its vocalic cousin . (Labialization is called

rounding Rounding or rounding off is the process of adjusting a number to an approximate, more convenient value, often with a shorter or simpler representation. For example, replacing $ with $, the fraction 312/937 with 1/3, or the expression √2 with ...

in vowels, and a velar place is called back.) and its voiceless equivalent are the only labialized velars with dedicated IPA symbols: * ¹ - In

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

s that distinguish between ''which'' and ''witch''. The voiceless approximant is traditionally called a "voiceless labial–velar fricative", but true doubly articulated fricatives are not known to be used in any language, as they are quite difficult to pronounce and even more difficult to distinguish.

Historical development

Labialized velars frequently derive from a plain velar followed by a rounded (labialized) vowel, such as or . In turn, they may sometimes develop into simple

bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips. Frequency Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tli ...

s. An example of this is the development of Proto-Indo-European *kʷ, *gʷ before *a or *o into Greek /p, b/, producing cognates as different as English ''come'' and ''basis''. The full sequence is demonstrated by the

Satsuma dialect The , often referred to as the , is a group of dialects or dialect continuum of the Japanese language spoken mainly within the area of the former Ōsumi Province, Ōsumi and Satsuma Province, Satsuma Provinces of Japan, provinces now incorporat ...

of Japanese: in northern Satsuma, Standard Japanese 'eat!' has contracted to ; in southern Satsuma, it has proceeded further to . A notable development is the initial *kʷ in

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-Euro ...

interrogative word An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as ''what, which'', ''when'', ''where'', '' who, whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most ...

s. In English, it developed into '' wh'' or ''h'' (''how''), pronounced /w/ in most dialects and /h/, respectively, via

Grimm's law Grimm's law, also known as the First Germanic Consonant Shift or First Germanic Sound Shift, is a set of sound laws describing the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stop consonants as they developed in Proto-Germanic in the first millennium BC, first d ...

followed by ''wh''-cluster reductions. By contrast, in

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and its descendants, the

Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

, that developed into '' qu'' (later Spanish ''cu'' (''cuando'') and ''c'' (''como'')), pronounced as /kʷ/ in Latin and variously as /kw/ or /k/ in the Romance languages. See etymology of English interrogative words for details. The English phonemic spelling '' kw'' for ''qu'' (as in '' kwik'') echoes its origin.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Labiovelar Consonant Phonology Labialized consonants Velar consonants

Labialized velar approximants

Historical development

See also

References