Dorsal consonant

Dorsal consonants are articulated with the mid body of the tongue (the dorsum). They include the palatal, velar, and in some cases alveolo-palatal and uvular consonants. Dorsals 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
⟨j⟩	Palatal approximant	English	yellow	/ˈjɛloʊ/
⟨ɡ⟩	Voiced velar stop		garden	/ˈgɑrdən/
⟨k⟩	Voiceless velar stop		cake	/ˈkeɪk/
⟨x⟩	Voiceless velar fricative	Scottish English	loch	/ˈlɒx/
⟨w⟩	Labio-velar approximant	English	water	/ˈwɔːtər/
⟨q⟩	Voiceless uvular stop	Arabic	Qurʾān (قرآن)	/qurʔaːn/
⟨ʁ⟩	Voiced uvular fricative or approximant	French	Paris	/paʁi/
⟨χ⟩	Voiceless uvular fricative	German	Bach	[baχ]

See also

• Place of articulation
• List of phonetics topics

References

• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8.