Labiodental Approximant
The 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 , a letter ''v'' with a leftward hook protruding from the upper right of the letter, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is P ''or'' v\. With an advanced diacritic, , this letter also indicates a bilabial approximant, though the diacritic is frequently omitted because no contrast is likely. The labiodental approximant is the typical realization of in the Indian South African variety of English. As the voiceless is also realized as an approximant (), it is also an example of a language contrasting voiceless and voiced labiodental approximants. Features Features of the voiced labiodental approximant: Occurrence See also * List of phonetics topics * ''R ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and [b], pronounced with the lips; and [d], pronounced with the front of the tongue; and [g], pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced throughout the vocal tract; , [v], , and [z] pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives); and and , which have air flowing through the nose (nasal consonant, nasals). Most consonants are Pulmonic consonant, pulmonic, using air pressure from the lungs to generate a sound. Very few natural languages are non-pulmonic, making use of Ejective consonant, ejectives, Implosive consonant, implosives, and Click consonant, clicks. Contrasting with consonants are vowels. Since the number of speech sounds in the world's languages is much greater than the number of letters in any one alphabet, Linguis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Catalan Language
Catalan () is a Western Romance languages, Western Romance language and is the official language of Andorra, and the official language of three autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous communities in eastern Spain: Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community, where it is called ''Valencian language, Valencian'' (). It has semi-official status in the Italy, Italian ''comune'' of Alghero, and it is spoken in the Pyrénées-Orientales department of France and in two further areas in eastern Spain: the La Franja, eastern strip of Aragon and the Carche area in the Region of Murcia. The Catalan-speaking territories are often called the or "Països Catalans". The language evolved from Vulgar Latin in the Middle Ages around the eastern Pyrenees. It became the language of the Principality of Catalonia and the kingdoms of kingdom of Valencia, Valencia and Kingdom of Majorca, Mallorca, being present throughout the Mediterranean. Replaced by Spanish as a language of gov ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Malé Latin
Dhivehi Latin or Maldivian Latin, known colloquially as Malé Latin or Nasiri Latin, is a Latin Maldivian alphabet briefly mandated in the Maldives from 1976, but the country reverted to the native Thaana and Arabic alphabets in 1978. Maldivian Latin is still widely used in non-academic literature for romanizing Maldivian, however its rules are not strictly adhered to by most Maldivians. History Maldivians traditionally used two alphabets simultaneously, the Tāna script for Maldivian and the Arabic script for Arabic. All learned Maldivians were well versed in the Quran and Arabic was the first script they learned in childhood. This was followed by their local script, Thaana, in which there were not many books printed, but that was important for official use. Therefore, the primary knowledge of the letters was called Arabitāna. Toward the mid-1970s, during President Ibrahim Nasir's tenure, telex machines were introduced by the Maldivian Government in the local administration. T ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thaana
Thaana, Tãna, Taana or Tāna ( ) is the present writing system of the Maldivian language spoken in the Maldives. Thaana has characteristics of both an abugida (diacritics, vowel-killer strokes) and a true alphabet (all vowels are written), with consonants derived from indigenous and Arabic numerals, and vowels derived from the vowel diacritics of the Arabic abjad. Maldivian orthography in Thaana is largely phonemic. Name H. C. P. Bell, the first serious researcher of Maldivian documents, used the spelling ''Tāna,'' as the initial consonant is unaspirated. The spelling ''Thaana'' was adopted in the mid-1970s, when the government of the Maldives embarked on a short period of Romanization; /t/ was transcribed , as was used for the voiceless retroflex plosive . History The Thaana script first appeared in a Maldivian inscription towards the beginning of the 17th century in a crude initial form known as Gabulhi ('incomplete') Thaana which was written '' scripta co ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Maldivian Language
Maldivian, also known by its Endonym and exonym, endonym Dhivehi (, ''Dhivēhī'', ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family, primarily spoken by the Maldivians, Maldivian people native to the South Asian archipelagic state of the Maldives; as well as the neighbouring Minicoy, Minicoy Island within Lakshadweep, a union territory of India. The Maldivian language has four notable dialects. The standard dialect is that of the capital city of Malé. The greatest dialectal variation exists in the southern atolls of Huvadhu Atoll, Huvadhu, Addu Atoll, Addu and Fuvahmulah. Each of these atolls has its own distinct dialect often thought to be interconnected with each other while being widely different from the dialect spoken in the northern atolls. The southern dialects are so distinct that those only speaking northern dialects cannot understand them. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cyrillic Script
The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic, Uralic languages, Uralic, Caucasian languages, Caucasian and Iranian languages, Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, North Asia, and East Asia, and used by many other minority languages. , around 250 million people in Eurasia use Cyrillic as the official script for their national languages, with Russia accounting for about half of them. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the Languages of the European Union#Writing systems, European Union, following the Latin script, Latin and Greek alphabet, Greek alphabets. The Early Cyrillic alphabet was developed during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School in the First Bulga ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chuvash Language
Chuvash ( , ; , , ) is a Turkic languages, Turkic language spoken in European Russia, primarily in the Chuvashia, Chuvash Republic and adjacent areas. It is the only surviving member of the Oghur languages, Oghur branch of Turkic languages, one of the two principal branches of the Turkic family. The writing system for the Chuvash language is based on the Cyrillic script, employing all of the letters used in the Russian alphabet and adding four letters of its own: Ӑ, Ӗ, Ҫ and Ӳ. Distribution Chuvash is the native language of the Chuvash people and an official language of Chuvashia Republic, Chuvashia. There are contradictory numbers regarding the number of people able to speak Chuvash nowadays; some sources claim it is spoken by 1,640,000 persons in Russia and another 34,000 in other countries and that 86% of ethnic Chuvash and 8% of the people of other ethnicities living in Chuvashia claimed knowledge of Chuvash language during the 2002 Russian Census, 2002 census. Ho ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pinyin
Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin'' literally means 'spelled sounds'. Pinyin is the official romanization system used in China, Singapore, Taiwan, and by the United Nations. Its use has become common when transliterating Standard Chinese mostly regardless of region, though it is less ubiquitous in Taiwan. It is used to teach Standard Chinese, normally written with Chinese characters, to students in mainland China and Singapore. Pinyin is also used by various Chinese input method, input methods on computers and to lexicographic ordering, categorize entries in some Chinese dictionaries. In pinyin, each Chinese syllable is spelled in terms of an optional initial (linguistics), initial and a final (linguistics), final, each of which is represented by one or more letters. Initi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chinese Characters
Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only one that has remained in continuous use. Over a documented history spanning more than three millennia, the function, style, and means of writing characters have changed greatly. Unlike letters in alphabets that reflect the sounds of speech, Chinese characters generally represent morphemes, the units of meaning in a language. Writing all of the frequently used vocabulary in a language requires roughly 2000–3000 characters; , nearly have been identified and included in ''The Unicode Standard''. Characters are created according to several principles, where aspects of shape and pronunciation may be used to indicate the character's meaning. The first attested characters are oracle bone inscriptions made during the 13th century&n ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretches from Yunnan in the southwest to Xinjiang in the northwest and Heilongjiang in the northeast. Its spread is generally attributed to the greater ease of travel and communication in the North China Plain compared to the more mountainous south, combined with the relatively recent spread of Mandarin to frontier areas. Many varieties of Mandarin, such as Southwestern Mandarin, those of the Southwest (including Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese) and the Lower Yangtze Mandarin, Lower Yangtze, are not mutually intelligible with the Beijing dialect (or are only partially intelligible). Nevertheless, Mandarin as a group is often placed first in lists of languages by number of native speakers (with nearly one billion). Because Mandarin originated in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chinese Language
Chinese ( or ) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and List of ethnic groups in China, many minority ethnic groups in China, as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora. Approximately 1.39 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language. Chinese languages form the Sinitic languages, Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of a single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a Language family, family. Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin Chinese, Mandarin with 66%, or around 800&nb ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Valencian Language
Valencian () or the Valencian language () is the official, historical and traditional name used in the Valencian Community to refer to the Romance language also known as Catalan language, Catalan, 'hour'. However (although regarded as non-standard), there are cases where regressive metaphony occurs over pretonic vowels; e.g. > 'affects', > 'towel'. :** Vowel harmony differs greatly from dialect to dialect, while many varieties assimilate both to the height and the quality of the preceding stressed vowel (e.g. 'Earth, land' and 'woman'); in other varieties, it is just the height that assimilates, so that and can be realised with either ( and/or ) or with ( and/or ), depending on the region and speaker. :*** In some subvarieties the unstressed vowels produced by vowel harmony may actually be higher than the stressed ones (e.g. 'door'). :* In a wider sense, vowel assimilations can occur in further instances (that is all or most instances of final unstressed , r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |