Labiodental approximant

The labiodental approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is similar to an English w pronounced with the teeth and lips held in the position used to articulate the letter vee. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is $\langle\rangle$, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is P or v\.

In practice, some scholars transcribe the labiodental approximant as $\langle\rangle$, i.e. as if it were a fricative. This does not happen in rare cases when a language contrasts the labiodental approximant with the voiced labiodental fricative, e.g. in case of Northern Standard Dutch.