Voiced labial–palatal approximant

The voiced labial–palatal (or labio-palatal) approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages, for example, French huitième, read as [ɥitjɛm].

The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɥ⟩, a rotated lowercase letter ⟨h⟩, or occasionally ⟨jʷ⟩, which indicates [j] with a different kind of rounding.

An example of such a language is Spanish, in which the labialized palatal approximant (not a semivowel) appears allophonically with rounded vowels in words such as ayuda [aˈʝ̞ʷuð̞a] 'help'.

According to some sources, it is not correct to transcribe this with the symbol ⟨ɥ⟩, which has a different kind of rounding, or with ⟨jʷ⟩, which implies spread lips; the only suitable transcription is ⟨ʝ̞ʷ⟩.

The spread-lip diacritic ⟨  ͍⟩ may also be used with a labialized approximant letter ⟨ɥ͍⟩ as an ad hoc symbol, though technically 'spread' means unrounded.