  the voiced labio-velar approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in certain spoken languages, including english. it is the sound denoted by the letter  in the english alphabet;; see the examples on the fifth page. likewise, the symbol in the international phonetic alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent x-sampa symbol is w. in most languages it is a labialized velar approximant , and the semivocalic counterpart of the close back rounded vowel  - i.e. the non-syllabic close back rounded vowel. as labio-velar consonants do not easily fit into consonant charts with only labial and velar columns,  may be put in either the velar column, (bi)labial column, or both, though the latter is rare outside of the official ipa chart; the placement may have more to do with phonological criteria than phonetic ones. ==features== features of the voiced labialized velar approximant:  the type of approximant is glide or semivowel. the term glide emphasizes the characteristic of movement (or 'glide') of /w/ from the /u/ 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).  some languages, such as japanese and perhaps the northern iroquoian languages, have a sound typically transcribed as  where the lips are compressed (or at least not rounded), which is a true labialâvelar (as opposed to labialized velar) consonant. close transcriptions may avoid the symbol  in such cases, or may use the under-rounding diacritic, .     ==occurrence== {| class="wikitable" !colspan=2| language !! word !! ipa !! meaning !! notes |- |colspan=2| abkhaz ||  ||  || 'human' || see abkhaz phonology |- |colspan=2| adyghe ||  ||  || 'you' || |- | arabic || standard ||  ||  || 'roses' || see arabic phonology |- | colspan="2" | [[assyrian ne
Approximant_consonants Labial_consonants Velar_consonants