Velar consonant

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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).

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 labialized velars, such as [kʷ], in which the articulation is accompanied by rounding of the lips. There are also labial-velar consonants, which are doubly articulated at the velum and at the lips, such as [k͡p]. This distinction disappears with the approximant [w], since labialization involves adding of a labial approximant articulation to a sound, and this ambiguous situation is often called labiovelar.

The velar consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPA	Description	Example
IPA	Description	Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
style="border:1px solid black"	velar nasal	English	ri	[ɹɪ]	ring
style="border:1px solid black"	voiceless velar plosive	English	sip	[sɪp]	skip
style="border:1px solid black"	voiced velar plosive	English	et	[ɛt]	get
style="border:1px solid black"	voiceless velar fricative	German	Bau	[baʊ]	abdomen
style="border:1px solid black"	voiced velar fricative	Margi	àfə́	[àfə́]	arrow
style="border:1px solid black"	voiceless labial-velar approximant	English	ich	[ɪtʃ]	which
style="border:1px solid black"	velar approximant	Spanish	paar	[paaɾ]	pay
style="border:1px solid black"	velar lateral approximant	Mid-Wahgi	aae	[aae]	dizzy
style="border:1px solid black"	labial-velar approximant	English	itch	[ɪtʃ]	witch

It is important to note at this point that a velar trill or tap is not possible - see the shaded boxes on the consonant table at the bottom. In the velar position the tongue has an extremely restricted ability to carry out the type of motion associated with trills or taps. Nor does the soft palate have the freedom to vibrate quickly to produce the uvular trill and hypothetically a uvular flap.

Velar consonant

Notes

See also