Talk:Voiceless labial–velar fricative

Untitled

Should we move this to voiceless labiovelar approximant to match its content? Or maybe a more precice voiceless labialized velar approximant? kwami 19:38, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Done. Voortle 18:21, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

In which dialects does does ʍ occur? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.227.246.202 (talk) 19:43, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

This is self-congratulatory expert twaddle. The only people who can understand it are those who don't need t read it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.155.119.196 (talk • contribs)

Concurred. Absolutely worthless. wtf IS a Voiceless labial approximant ? Like the guy below is asking, Is it the Cool Whip OR NOT? Speak English that people who came here can understand FFS. 69.255.22.118 (talk) 03:26, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Try following a few of the links and you may learn something about the subject. If you're not interested in it, fine – there are millions of other articles for you to read. FWIW, I came to this article not to congratulate myself on my expertise but because I wanted to find out more about it. Vilĉjo (talk) 17:44, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Is this the 'wh' in 'cool whip'? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.67.59.99 (talk) 03:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Irish English

Irish English features <hw> <wh>. Could you mention this as well as Southern English? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thechindi (talk • contribs) 14:46, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Cornish

Please don't start an edit war over the Cornish use of <wh>/<hw>, Kernoweger.
You originally explained in the Note the circumstances under which <wh> and <hw> were used. This was tidied up, made more succinct, and the meaning of 'hwath' was clarified, quite reasonably in my opinion. You reverted that, without giving any justification, and removed the Note altogether. I undid that revision and explained that I was doing so because the previous version was clearer and more accurate. I stand by that assertion. You have now undone that revision with no explanation other than 'Don't be so transparent'. I don't understand that comment and I doubt whether other editors will. If it is intended as a justification for the removal of factual information about the use of <wh> and <hw> in Cornish, then I'd ask you to clarify it here. I'm going to undo your revert because the previous version was clearer and more accurate. Please come here and explain your rationale before you revert it again, Kernoweger.
Please don't start an edit war over the Cornish use of <wh>/<hw>.
Treylyer (talk) 15:24, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

You just want hw to be described instead of wh. I'm not going to pretend to assume good faith. You came on here and changed it because you want hw. It's as simple as that. Any other claim of being "tidied up", "more succinct" or "clarified" is just disingenuous and transparent. You know as well as I do what your agenda is. I'm not going to bother with it. There was no reason to change the original version apart from your petty factionalism. Well done for bringing the Cornish orthography disputes to yet another Internet page. I'm sure every Cornish speaker will congratulate you for it. --Kernoweger (talk) 16:01, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't want <hw> to be described instead of <wh>.
The evidence for this is clear - the Note that you keep forcing me to reinstate describes both <hw> and <wh>. That's the version that I want, and it describes both spelling conventions, not just one of them.
Whereas the version to which you keep reverting describes only <wh> and therefore purposefully misrepresents the situation.
The version that describes both <wh> and <hw> in the Note accurately reflects widespread current usage of both <wh> and <hw>. I merely tidied it up and made it more succinct and clearer. Your current version, which intentionally ignores <hw>, simply does not reflect current usage.
I would suggest that rather than going overboard with vague, and false, accusations about disingenuousness, transparency, agendas, factionalism, and orthography disputes, you justify why the article is improved by ignoring <hw> and its usage.
Treylyer (talk) 17:54, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Time for a compromise then, as we both know you won't initiate one. Your disingenuous concerns about the lack of clarification in the "notes" column does not explain the need for you to change "whath" to "hwath" in the "words" column, an action whose only possible purpose was to remove a form of Cornish you personally dislike. --Kernoweger (talk) 19:45, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm quite happy for both 'hwath' and 'whath' to appear in the "words" column, so I'll change it accordingly. You were the one that started with just one version of the word in the "words" column, not me. An action whose only possible purpose, according to your own reasoning, was to ignore a form of Cornish you personally dislike. My motive was different - if only one form is going to be specified then there is good reason, as far as I'm concerned, for it to be the Main Form of the SWF. I can't see any good reason for totally ignoring the Main Form of the SWF in favour of another form, which is what you did. However, let's move away from your approach, and specify both. Treylyer (talk) 20:36, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I've made the compromise clearer. Will you now be arguing about which word goes first? --Kernoweger (talk) 22:46, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm not going to argue with you. I put the words in alphabetical order, which is what we do as a matter of course in circumstances such as this. There is no unbiased rationale for the order you've chosen but anyone close to the situation will know what you're up to. So let the words and the carefully constructed long-winded Note, which is mendacious through omission, stand as evidence. Factionalism? You're clearly an expert at fostering it.
As we've all been asked not to indulge in edit wars on Wikipedia I'm going to give up trying to get you to agree to something reasonable and reasoned and leave the article as it is.
I've e-mailed the Partnership referencing this article as yet another example of the impossibility of working with orthography terrorists like yourself. Treylyer (talk) 07:06, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

"Terrorists"? Haha, how dramatic. You wouldn't have to work with us at all if you had just left the article alone in the first place. But no, you saw wh and had to pounce. So yet another blemish on the image of the language might have been avoided had you just been able to restrain yourself. You could argue (and I'm sure you would) that you had a duty to add hw in order to fully describe the range of orthographic options, but we both know that duty had nothing to do with your decision to hit the edit button on this minor, seldom-read page barely relevant to Cornish. I think that says more about you than it does about me. Nadelik lowen! --Kernoweger (talk) 20:31, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we need to have the word listed with both spellings if one is much more common amongst standard Cornish orthographies. The note tells me that this is correct. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 17:07, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Normally I would agree, but a ridiculously large can of worms surrounds this minor orthographic difference. --Kernoweger (talk) 20:31, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it's quite ridiculous, Kernoweger. IMHO, your behavior here has been in quite poor form, unbecoming of a Wikipedia editor. I hope this isn't your usual MO. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:23, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

OGG sample

Is this really how the phone is pronounced in English dialects which still have it? It sounds like a [xw] cluster to me; the components are quite clearly separated. The first part sounds like a [x] rather than a [h] to me, and the [w] part isn't even devoiced. At least that's what I'm hearing; I guess you could do a spectrographic analysis to disprove me – or alternatively, confirm my impression. Can't we get a native speaker of an English dialect without the whine-wine merger to record what his realisation sounds like? I've never heard such a dialect, I think. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:01, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Your impression seems pretty accurate, though it's largely unproblematic. It had better sound like a [x] rather than [h] since it's partially a velar approximant. It's also not strange for there to be a w-like offglide with labialized sounds, but this offglide is so strong that it does seem a lot more like a full w-segment following a labialized [x], which is liable to be confusing to people unfamiliar with this sound. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 03:39, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I can accept a slight [x]-like or [xʷ]-like attack, although it still seems rather strong to me (and at any rate the article doesn't mention [x] as an attack, only [h]), but the lack of devoicing in the [w] clearly contradicts the description in the article, as I understand that is the critical point of distinction between [ʍ] and a [xw] cluster.

Listening again, I appreciate that Peter did make an effort to devoice the offglide and succeeded (more or less) in the second instance, but in the first instance, the offglide is quite clearly – to my ears, at least – not devoiced (not even partly) and I suspect that a spectrographic analysis would support my assessment. Judging from the description, the phone is supposed to sound more like [x(ʷ)w̥] or even [x(ʷ)ɸ]. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:36, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm having a little difficulty understanding your post. What do you mean by "attack"? The w-like offglide doesn't have to be voiceless, by the way. The critical distinction (phonetically, anyway) between [ʍ] and a [xw] cluster is the length. since [xw] is two segments, it's twice as long. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 20:35, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I mean the "onset", but that is already a term used in syllable theory, so I borrowed terminology from audio technology, see attack and Synthesizer#ADSR envelope (OK, I thought wrong: onset is actually the correct term, as attack really refers to the time needed for the build-up of a sound). If your description is correct, and [ʍ] isn't simply a [xʷ] (despite the fact that, as the article explains, the symbol sometimes appropriated for such a – fricative instead of approximant – sound in languages other than English and Cornish), I understand that [ʍ] is essentially a doubly articulated consonant, and those do not have mixed voice; they are unitary sounds with unitary properties. If a [ʍ] need not be unvoiced, why is it called "voiceless" then? Why does the article describe it as effectively the same as [w̥] or [hw̥] then? Excuse me if I don't buy this. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:27, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't think you're getting what I'm saying. Just to be clear, [xʷ] is not the same thing as [xw]; the former is a doubly-articulated consonant (that is, the constriction at the velum and at the lips is simultaneous) and the latter is two segments (the constriction at the velum comes sequentially before the lips). Because the former has simultaneous constriction, there can be no difference in voicing because it's all one sound (it's impossible to do elsewise). What's going on in the sound clip is [xʷw], which is two segments. It thus features the voiceless labio-velar approximant, but it also has a voiced one right after it that acts as an offglide; this can confuse readers who might think that [xʷ] and [xw] indicate the same thing. What makes this all the more confusing is that trying to articulate [xw] without labializing the first element is very difficult, feeding into the notion that [xʷ] and [xw] indicate the same thing.

I'm repeating this because it seems that you believe that this sound is a cluster of some sort when it's a single consonant. [h] is irrelevant phonetically; as voiceless glottal fricative explains, it is just a voiceless version of surrounding sounds (usually vowels). Instances of this sound, however, are analyzed as being a cluster of /h/ and /w/ in English. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 14:15, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

What's going on in the sound clip is [xʷw], which is two segments.

Yep, that's exactly what I hear. Now the problem is the difference between [xʷw], which is two segments, and [ʍ], which is one segment. Even if I grant, for the moment, that an off-glide is necessary (the article doesn't say this, I've never heard it either and it makes no sense to me), the problem is still there: Without the off-glide, the OGG file illustrates [xʷ], which, judging from the description in the article, is not the same as [ʍ] at all, but an entirely different sound.

I'm not saying that this sound is a cluster of some sort myself. It's the article which claims that it can be a cluster. If this is misleading, it should be changed.

I have to ask again: Of the three symbols [ʍ], [w̥], and [xʷ], which are the same, and which are different? Or do they all mean the same thing?

It has always been my understanding that [ʍ] is simply the voiceless version of [w], and [xʷ] is something entirely different, as it is a fricative and not an approximant – and contrary to what you say, not really double-articulated, which would imply two constrictions or closures of the same intensity: it has a secondary articulation instead; contrast [xʷ] with [x͡ɸ] just like [kʷ] with [k͡p] (it is true that they are often confused, though, due to their close similarity, but theoretically at least they are not the same).

Perhaps we should get a third opinion if we can't clear up whatever misunderstanding exists among us (Kwamikagami?), and change the article to be clearer.

By the way, the source referred to in Modern Scots#Consonants also clearly distinguishes [ʍ] from [xʍ]. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:44, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

You are right that [ʍ] is the voiceless version of [w], but [w] itself is a group of related sounds. Thus [xʷ] is a possible realization for [ʍ], and so are some of the sounds you've listed. The sound can be doubly-articulated, secondarily articulated (either a labialized velar or a velarized labial), exolabial, endolabial, and anywhere on the spectrum between heavily constricted fricative and lightly constricted approximant.

The distinction between approximant and fricative gets especially muddled with voiceless sounds (our article on approximants discusses this briefly) and this particular sound is even described as a fricative in the official IPA chart. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 12:47, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Hm, I see. But then, the article does say: On rare occasions the symbol is appropriated for a labialized velar fricative, [xʷ], in other languages, which implies that [ʍ] and [xʷ] should be kept separate. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:25, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Not sure whether to hear [xʍ] or [hʍ], perhaps a [x] with little friction. At any rate, I agree that it sounds like a cluster, especially in the intervocalic position. On the other hand, it's always sounded like a cluster to me in English as well. Does this even really exist on its own? I mean I'm sure it's unvoiced, but the distinguishing feature seems to be the aspiration, not the lack of voice. 77.191.213.94 (talk) 23:44, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

The sounds file sounds to me like a voiceless velar fricative with lip-rounding. Comparing my spectrograms of (1) unrounded voiceless velar fricative, (2) rounded voiceless velar fricative and (3) my attempt at a voiceless labiovelar approximant [ʍ], the high-frequency energy (around 7kHz) present in the first two and absent in the third one supports my view that this is a recording of a velar fricative. However, I am in fact pretty sceptical about whether there is a genuine phonetic distinction between voiceless fricatives and voiceless approximants, so maybe the recording should stand. RoachPeter (talk) 17:00, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Just noticed that the name of the sound file being used to exemplify a voiceless labiovelar approximant is actually labelled Voiceless_labio-velar_fricative.ogg ‎. So what is it doing in an article on the former? I have recorded an attempt to produce [ʍɑ ɑʍɑ] without velar friction - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Voiceless_labiovelar_approximant.ogg RoachPeter (talk) 15:22, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

@RoachPeter: Because we don't have a separate article for it. This article, originally at Voiceless labial-velar fricative, is placed under the current name apparently because it's what SOWL says most instances of sounds transcribed as [ʍ] are, but I agree the distinction between voiceless fricatives and approximants is controversial at best and we should simply follow the IPA (which would entail not only moving but merging some articles as we have separate articles for [l̥], [j̊], etc.).

I asked what the consensus in the field is on whether to posit "voiceless approximants" here, only to receive no satisfying answer so far—but at the very least the quotes I listed there clearly lean towards "there are no such things"; I'd be very interested in how you would answer the question actually. Nardog (talk) 15:42, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

@Nardog:The Stackexchange discussion was well worth doing to clarify things. I have jotted a few thoughts about the issue on my blog (https://www.peterroach.net/blog) but many questions are left unanswered. RoachPeter (talk) 11:42, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

@RoachPeter: Yes I saw it, thank you for such a thoughtful post! I haven't been able to fully wrap my head around it and it would be interesting to see the field develop in the area Pike, Catford, Ladefoged, Shadle and you have explored, but on Wikipedia, with WP:No original research, WP:Neutral point of view and WP:Verifiability being the core content policies, we must rely on established bodies of literature. So my concern, as was the inspiration for the StackExchange question, is that we might be misrepresenting the mainstream view of the field in our current organization of articles about phonetic sounds and of IPA letters.

According to Ladefoged & Maddieson, the sounds in English hue and whether (when distinct from weather) are, in their terminology, approximants. Yet the IPA defines ⟨ʍ⟩ as a fricative, when the only reason it exists as a distinct letter in the IPA as far as I can tell is because of English (it predates the 1888 alphabet). If phoneticians agreed that the English sound is an approximant, I'd imagine the IPA chart would have been "fixed" with ⟨ʍ⟩ redefined as an approximant a long time ago, but I see not even a discussion of such a change in the Journal of the IPA, or anywhere.

Another fundamental problem in the current organization is the scarcity of sources on the matter. Since not all phoneticians make the distinction, e.g. a grammar of an underdocumented language saying it has "a voiceless version of [l]" cannot automatically be taken as it having an approximant-like production. Voiceless palatal approximant, Voiceless dental, alveolar and postalveolar lateral approximants, etc. list "occurrences", but I highly doubt all or even most of them have instrumental studies to back their having approximant-like production (and I also doubt the occurrences listed in the corollary fricative articles have studies to back their being definitely non-approximant). Asu, Nolan & Schötz (2015) concluded that "the complexity of the data from Estonian Swedish excludes a categorical interpretation", and even Ladefoged & Maddieson noted that "in [some] cases it is difficult to decide whether a voiceless lateral should be described as an approximant or a fricative". Consolidating them all into fricative articles, while adding notes where there are empirical studies on articulation/acoustics, will allow more accurate representation of the sources cited. Would you agree? Nardog (talk) 02:45, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

@Nardog:Yes, what you suggest is probably a good long-term solution, if others do not disagree. For the short term I though I might expand [[1]] to explain the controversial nature of the category, including material sourced from your Stackexchange enquiry. I would have to be careful of OR. I have mailed Ian Maddieson to ask if he has any thoughts to add. RoachPeter (talk) 15:26, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Definition of voiceless approximant

As far as I can see from this article, the voiceless labio-velar approximant is voiceless, and is articulated with a stricture that is not close enough to produce turbulent noise. Logically, that means that this segment is completely silent. Of course, it isn't silent, because IPA ʍ is a fricative. RoachPeter (talk) 16:32, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

You're probably right for English, though take a look at Approximant consonant#Approximants versus fricatives. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 17:03, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to continue discussing this here, but there is more going on on the Talk page for the IPA Chart itself, so I'll carry on there. RoachPeter (talk) 09:00, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Deletion of vowel symbol

Someone has deleted the optional symbolization of this sound with a non-syllabic and devoiced [u] symbol. Strictly speaking this deletion is incorrect and should be reverted. Approximants such as [w] and [j] are traditionally classed as non-syllabic vocoids. The lead to this article is wrong to describe the sound in question simply as consonantal - it usually functions phonologically as a consonant, but is phonetically vowel-like. However, if this article should be amended to make the point clear, the same should be done for voiceless [j], which at present does not seem to be given the option of the symbolization with non-syllabic devoiced [i]. RoachPeter (talk) 09:21, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Voiced labialized-velar approximant which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 10:31, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Existance of This Phoneme in Biblical Hebrew

I thought it's accepted that the voiceless labial velar fricative is an underlying [hw] or [xw]? I would pausit that it would be very difficult to distinctly pronounce an /h/ before a /w/ without causing a voiceless labial-velar fricative to occur allophonically. If that's the case, then Biblical Hebrew words such as Yahweh /jah.we/ would be pronounced [jaˈʍe]. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here, but I would imagine it's the most reasonable hypothesis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BiggieChungus69 (talk • contribs) 04:25, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

You need a ref that it occurs, otherwise every language in the world with the sequence h-w could be added.

Also, this is supposed to be a velar fricative, which would turn Yahweh into /jax.we/ Yachweh, wouldn't it? — kwami (talk) 10:32, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Spanish

This phoneme exists in Spanish, a lot of people pronounce words such as juego, juez, juan, enjuagar, etc with this phoneme. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 181.164.32.58 (talk) 03:39, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

They do not. In Spanish, they're clearly two segments with a clear voicing of [w], so [xw ~ χw]. I'm not convinced any dialect uses [hw], but all possible pronunciations consist of two distinct, separate sounds. Sol505000 (talk) 01:21, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Hwat?

Can't it just be represented as /hw/? Ultradestroya48 (talk) 23:04, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Though the "wh" combo can be pronounced with the /h/ preceding the /w/, but that isn't what this symbol represents. As the article notes, the articulation is simultaneous, with the back of the mouth and the lips concurrently approaching a [k͡p] articulation. Largoplazo (talk) 23:37, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

[w] is already a co-articulation at the lips and the dorsum/velum. Nardog (talk) 07:35, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean by, it "already" is? It is, and so is [ʍ]. One is voiced, the other voiceless. Largoplazo (talk) 10:31, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

What point were you trying to make by saying [ʍ] is co-articulated, then? The difference between [hw] and [ʍ] lies in the timing of voice, at least nominally (in actuality the notation ⟨hw⟩ is usually an attempt to reduce the number of symbols or phonemes), not in place of articulation, so what do the places of articulation of [ʍ] have to do with the OP's question? Nardog (talk) 17:41, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

The only point I was making, in response to the original question, is that [ʍ] can't "just be represented" by [hw] because the latter implies a sequence of sounds whereas the former is a single sound involving co-articulation. Largoplazo (talk) 19:36, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

And I've been saying [w] is also co-articulated so co-articulation is not where the difference between [hw] and [ʍ] does, or can, lie. I just see no reason to bring it up in an answer to the question. Nardog (talk) 19:55, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Numerous co-articulated consonants, including [w], [ʍ], the pronuncation of Danish final "d", West African sounds commonly spelled "gb" in English, and Arabic "emphatic" consonants, exist. Their existence doesn't contradict the observation that [ʍ] is appropriately represented by a single glyph because it's co-articulated, rather than, as Ultradestroya48 was asking, by a pair of adjacent glyphs, which would imply sequential articulation, which would be false. The only thing I can think of that you might be stuck on is that the second glyph proposed by Ultra is [w], but I wasn't even paying attention to that, I was addressing what I figured was the larger question which is why not use a pair of simpler symbols instead of one specialized one. Largoplazo (talk) 23:07, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Ah I see. That reading would only make sense if they had written ⟨ɸx⟩ instead of ⟨hw⟩ though. Nardog (talk) 00:02, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

labiodental??????

Why on earth would a labiovelar approximant be labiodental? There's a 99% chance this is false. I don't have the source so I can't confirm, but there's just absolutely no way that's true. Dylanvt (talk) 16:33, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

It was a mistake. Fixed. Largoplazo (talk) 19:24, 14 March 2024 (UTC)