Everything about Velars totally explained
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's 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:
It is important to note at this point that a velar
trill or
tap isn't 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.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Velars'.
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