Dorsal consonant

Template:Short description Template:IPA notice Dorsal consonants are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum). They include the palatal, velar and, in some cases, alveolo-palatal and uvular consonants. They contrast with coronal consonants, articulated with the flexible front of the tongue, and laryngeal consonants, articulated in the pharyngeal cavity.

Function

The dorsum of the tongue can contact a broad region of the roof of the mouth, from the hard palate (palatal consonants), the flexible velum behind that (velar consonants), to the uvula at the back of the mouth cavity (uvular consonants). These distinctions are not clear cut, and sometimes finer gradations such as pre-palatal, pre-velar, and post-velar will be noted.

Because the tip of the tongue can curl back to also contact the hard palate for retroflex consonants (subapical-palatal), consonants produced by contact between the dorsum and the palate are sometimes called dorso-palatal.

Examples

Familiar dorsal consonants

IPA symbol	Name of the consonant	Language	Example	IPA
Template:Angbr IPA	Voiced palatal nasal	Albanian	lang}}	main}}
Template:Angbr IPA	Voiced palatal fricative	Modern Greek	lang}}	main}}
Template:Angbr IPA	Voiceless palatal fricative	German	lang}}	main}}
Template:Angbr IPA	Voiced palatal approximant	English	yellow	main}}
Template:Angbr IPA	Voiced velar nasal		sing	main}}
Template:Angbr IPA	Voiced velar plosive		garden	main}}
Template:Angbr IPA	Voiceless velar plosive		cake	main}}
Template:Angbr IPA	Voiced velar fricative	Modern Greek	Template:Transliteration ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}})	main}}
Template:Angbr IPA	Voiceless velar fricative	Malay	lang}}	main}}
Template:Angbr IPA	Voiceless labio-velar approximant	English	whine	main}}
Template:Angbr IPA	Voiced labio-velar approximant		water	main}}
Template:Angbr IPA	Voiceless uvular plosive	Arabic	[[Quran|Template:Transliteration]] ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}})	main}}
Template:Angbr IPA	Voiced uvular plosive	Persian	Qom ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}})	main}}
Template:Angbr IPA	Voiced uvular fricative or approximant	French	lang}}	main}}
Template:Angbr IPA	Voiceless uvular fricative	German	lang}}	main}}

See also

• Place of articulation
• List of phonetics topics

References

• Template:SOWL