Voiced labiodental approximant

A voiced labiodental approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is something between an English /w/ and /v/, pronounced with the teeth and lips held in the position used to articulate the letter V. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʋ⟩, a letter v with a leftward hook protruding from the upper right of the letter. In some sources, this letter indicates a bilabial approximant, though this is more accurately transcribed with an advanced diacritic, ⟨ʋ̟⟩.

A labiodental approximant is the typical realization of /v/ in the Indian South African variety of English. As the voiceless /f/ is also realized as an approximant ([ʋ̥]), it is also an example of a language contrasting voiceless and voiced labiodental approximants.