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Alabialized velar orlabiovelar is avelar consonant that islabialized, with a/w/-likesecondary articulation. Examples are[kʷ,ɡʷ,xʷ,ɣʷ,ŋʷ], which are pronounced like a[k,ɡ,x,ɣ,ŋ], with rounded lips, such as thelabialized voiceless velar plosive[kʷ] andlabialized voiced velar plosive[ɡʷ],obstruents being common among the sounds that undergo labialization.[1]
The most common labiovelar consonant is the voiced approximant[w]. It is normally a labialized velar, as is its vocalic equivalent[u]. (Labialization is calledrounding in vowels, and a velar place is calledback).
[w] and its voiceless equivalent are the only labialized velars with dedicated IPA symbols:
| IPA | Description | Example | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language | Orthography | IPA | Meaning | ||
| ʍ | Voiceless labial–velar fricative | English | which | [ʍɪtʃ]1 | 'which' |
| w | Voiced labial–velar approximant | witch | [wɪtʃ] | 'witch' | |
The voiceless approximant is traditionally called a "voiceless labial–velar fricative", but truedoubly articulated fricatives are not known to be used in any language, as they are quite difficult to pronounce and even more difficult to distinguish.
Labialized velars frequently derive from a plain velar followed by arounded (labialized) vowel, such as[u] or[o]. In turn, they may sometimes develop into simplebilabial consonants. An example of this is thedevelopment of Proto-Indo-European *kʷ, *gʷ before *a or *o intoGreek /p, b/, producing cognates as different as Englishcome andbasis. The full sequence is demonstrated by theSatsuma dialect of Japanese: in northern Satsuma, Standard Japanese[kue] 'eat!' has contracted to[kʷe]; in southern Satsuma, it has proceeded further to[pe].
A notable development is the initial *kʷ inProto-Indo-Europeaninterrogative words. In English, it developed intowh orh (how), pronounced /w/ in most dialects and /h/, respectively, viaGrimm's law followed bywh-cluster reductions. By contrast, inLatin and its descendants, theRomance languages, that developed intoqu (later Spanishcu (cuando) andc (como)), pronounced as /kʷ/ in Latin and variously as /kw/ or /k/ in the Romance languages. Seeetymology of English interrogative words for details. The Englishphonemic spellingkw forqu (as inkwik) echoes its origin.