Velar

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).

The velar consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPA Symbol	Name	Example		Meaning
k	Voiceless velar plosive	English	[kʰæp]	cap
ɡ	Voiced velar plosive	English	[ɡɛt]	get
ŋ	Velar nasal	English	[ɹʌŋ]	rung
x	Voiceless velar fricative	Hebrew	[mixel]	מיכאל (="Michael")
ɣ	Voiced velar fricative	Velar approximant	Spanish	[paɰa]	paga (="pay, wages") ¹
ʟ	Velar lateral approximant	Labio-velar approximant	English	[wɪtʃ]	witch
ʍ	Voiceless labio-velar fricative	English	[ʍɪtʃ]	which ²

Notes:

Intervocalic 'g' in Spanish often described instead as a very lightly articulated voiced velar fricative.
For English dialects that distinguish between which and witch

Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive and the movements of the dorsum are not very precise, velars easily undergo assimilation, shifting their articulation back or to the front depending on the quality of adjacent vowels. They often become automatically fronted, that is partly or completely palatal before a following front vowel, and retracted before back vowels.

Palatalised velars (like English [k] in keen or cube) are sometimes referred to as palatovelars. Many languages also have labiovelar phonemes, including the approximant [w] and others given symbols like [k^w] etc. In these the articulation is accompanied by rounding of the lips.

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Velar

See also