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 absent in English, but may be approximated by making  but with the tongue body lowered or  but with the lips apart. The voiced velar approximant can in many cases be considered the semivocalic counterpart of the close back unrounded vowel .  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.

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' || Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of .
|-
| rowspan="4" | Astur-Leonese || Asturian ||  || || || rowspan="4" | Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of .
|-
| Extremaduran ||  || ||
|-
| Leonese ||  || ||
|-
| Mirandese ||  || ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Catalan ||  ||  || 'water' || Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; 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' || Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding. 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 || Western East Flemish || || || || Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding. Corresponds to a fricative  in other 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' || Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of . See Galician phonology
|-
| Greek || Cypriot ||  ||  || 'shop' || Allophone of .
|-
| rowspan="2" | Guarani 
| ||  ||  || 'near, close to' || Contrasts with 
|-
|Ñandewa Paulista-Paranaense
|
|
|'I cut'
|Contrasts with .
|-
| colspan="2" | Hiw || ter̄og ||  || 'peace' || Contrasts with  and with .
|-
| colspan="2" |Ibibio || ufokọ ||  ||  || Intervocalic allophone of ; may be a uvular tap  instead.
|-
| colspan="2" | Icelandic ||  ||  || 'saga' || Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding. 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' || Contrasts with .
|-
| colspan="2" | Shipibo ||  ||  ||  || Continuant consonant with variable frication and unspecified rounding; allophone of  in certain high-frequency morphemes.
|-
| colspan="2" | Spanish ||  ||  || 'to pay' || Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of . See Spanish phonology
|-
| Swedish || Central Standard ||  ||  || 'agronomist' || Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; allophone of  in casual speech. See Swedish phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Tagalog || igriega ||  || 'y (letter)' || Approximant consonant unspecified for rounding; intervocalic allophone of . See Tagalog phonology
|-
| colspan="2" | Tiwi ||  ||  || 'we (inclusive)' ||
|-
| colspan="2" | Venetian ||  ||  || 'gondola' || See Venetian language
|-
|Vietnamese
|Southern
|gà|
|'chicken'
|Typical realization of  in other dialects. Variant is in complementary distribution before open vowels.
|}

Pre-velar

 Voiced velar bunched approximant 

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 . The extension to the IPA recommends the use of the "centralized" diacritic combined with the IPA sign for the alveolar approximant (as in ) to distinguish the bunched realization from the prototypical apical , which may be specified as . Typically, the diacritic is omitted, so that the sound is transcribed simply with  or  (in broader transcriptions: ), as if it were a coronal consonant.

In ordinary IPA, this sound can be transcribed with  or , depending on whether it can be labialized (see below). This captures pharyngealization (uncommon in velar approximants) but not bunching of the tongue, which can be transcribed by adding a superscript retroflex approximant: ,  (see ).

In Dutch, this type of r is called   '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
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.

Occurrence

 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 approximant consonant (not semivowel'') unspecified for rounding 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 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.

The velar bunched approximant is typically written with  or  (in broader transcriptions: ), none of which capture its place of articulation. The prototypical ,  and  are all unspecified for rounding like .

See also
 Index of phonetics articles

Notes

References

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 .
.

External links
 

Velar consonants
Pulmonic consonants
Voiced oral consonants
Central consonants