velar consonant

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 labiovelar phonemes, including the approximant /w/ and others given symbols like /kʷ/ etc. In these the articulation is accompanied by rounding of the lips. The velar consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

style="border:1px solid black" rowspan="2" \| IPA	style="border:1px solid black" rowspan="2" \| Description	style="border:1px solid black" colspan="4" \| Example
style="border:1px solid black"\|Language	style="border:1px solid black"\|Orthography	style="border:1px solid black"\|IPA	style="border:1px solid black"\|Meaning
style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|voiceless velar plosive	style="border:1px solid black"\|English	style="border:1px solid black"\|sip	style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|skip
style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|voiced velar plosive	style="border:1px solid black"\|English	style="border:1px solid black"\|et	style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|get
style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|velar nasal	style="border:1px solid black"\|English	style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|ring
style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|voiceless velar fricative	style="border:1px solid black"\|Hebrew	style="border:1px solid black"\|מיאל	style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|Michael
style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|voiced velar fricative	style="border:1px solid black"\|Margi	style="border:1px solid black"\|àfə́	style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|arrow
style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|velar approximant	style="border:1px solid black"\|Spanish	style="border:1px solid black"\|paar	style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|to pay
style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|velar lateral approximant	style="border:1px solid black"\|Mid-Waghi	style="border:1px solid black"\|aae	style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|dizzy
style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|labio-velar approximant	style="border:1px solid black"\|English	style="border:1px solid black"\|itch	style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|witch
style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|voiceless labio-velar fricative	style="border:1px solid black"\|English	style="border:1px solid black"\|ich	style="border:1px solid black"\|	style="border:1px solid black"\|which

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

Velar Consonant

See also