Latin Small Letter Turned W

Latin Small Letter Turned W at U+028D represents a voiceless labial-velar approximant, the sound many English speakers associate with wh in words like which and whale when pronounced differently from witch and wail. It belongs to the IPA Extensions block and is a phonetic letter rather than an ordinary spelling character in modern alphabets. Its main use is in the International Phonetic Alphabet for narrow transcription of speech. Linguists, dictionaries, language textbooks, and speech-science materials use it when they need to show that the lips are rounded while the back of the tongue approaches the velum, but without vocal-cord vibration, as in a careful transcription of some Scottish, Irish, or conservative American pronunciations of wh words. The letter also appears in phonology and dialectology when describing sound contrasts or sound change. A paper might compare /ʍ/ and /w/ to discuss the wine–whine distinction, or note that a dialect has merged /ʍ/ into /w/. It is uncommon in everyday writing, so outside phonetic contexts it is most often encountered in copied IPA text, pronunciation guides, and linguistic datasets.