The extremely common approximant sound is sometimes subject to fortition; since it is a
semivowel, almost any change to the sound other than simple deletion would constitute fortition. It has changed into the
voiced fricative in a number of indigenous languages of the
Arctic, such as the
Eskimo–Aleut languages and
Ket, also in some varieties of
Spanish, and in the
Sicilian language when the aforementioned semivowel is subjected to
gemination. In
Yonaguni (
Southern Ryukyuan) and
Maldivian (
Indo-Aryan), it has changed word-initially into . Via a
voiceless palatal approximant, it has turned in some
Germanic languages into , the voiceless equivalent of and also cross-linguistically rare though less so than . Another change turned to an affricate during the development of the
Romance languages from Latin. Fortition of the cross-linguistically rare
interdental fricatives and to the almost universal corresponding stops and is relatively common. This has occurred in most continental
Germanic languages and several
English dialects, several
Uralic languages, and a few
Semitic languages, among others. This has the result of reducing the
markedness of the sounds and . Fortition also frequently occurs with voiceless versions of the common
lateral approximant , usually sourced from combinations of with a voiceless
obstruent. The product is a
voiceless alveolar lateral fricative . In
Welsh, words inherited from
Proto-Celtic with initial or hardened to and , respectively. Examples: Old Welsh
lau to Modern Welsh ; Old Welsh
ros to Modern Welsh . In the Cushitic language
Iraqw, *d has lenited to between vowels, but *r has undergone fortition to word initially. In
Friulian, > :
yoyba,
jobia >
dobia,
doba;
gel >
dal; Lat.
iuvenis >
doven; Lat.
iunius >
dun. Gemination of word-initial consonants occurs in
Italian if a word-final stressed vowel precedes without intervening pause, in a process known as
syntactic gemination. Final stressed vowels are by nature short, and short stressed vowels precede a consonant within a (phonetic) word only if that consonant ends the syllable. An item such as
comprò 's/he bought' thus triggers
gemination of the following consonant, whereas
compra 's/he buys/is buying' does not:
comprò la pasta 's/he bought the pasta' but
compra la pasta 's/he buys/is buying the pasta'. In addition to language-internal development, fortition can also occur when a language acquires loanwords.
Goidelic languages frequently display fortition in loanwords as most initial
fricatives (except for , and ) are disallowed in the
citation form of Goidelic words. Thus initial fricatives of loanwords are strengthened to the corresponding
unlenited variant or the nearest equivalent if the fricative is not part of the phoneme inventory. Examples from
Scottish Gaelic: ==Post-nasal fortition==