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velar

(vē'lər)

adj.

1. Of or relating to a velum.
2. Concerning or using the soft palate.
Articulated with the back of the tongue touching or near the soft palate, as (g) in good and (k) in king.

A velar consonant.

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Medical Dictionary: ve·lar

(vē'lər)
adj.

Of or relating to a velum.
Concerning or using the soft palate.

WordNet: velar

Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The adjective has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: of or relating to the velum
Pertains to noun: velum (meaning #3)

Meaning #2: produced with the back of the tongue touching or near the soft palate (as `k' in `cat' and `g' in `gun' and `ng' in `sing')

Wikipedia: velar consonant

"Velar" redirects here. For the village in Rajasthan, see Velar (village).

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
	velar nasal	English	ring	[ɹɪŋ]	ring
	voiceless velar plosive	English	skip	[skɪp]	skip
	voiced velar plosive	English	get	[ɡɛt]	get
	voiceless velar fricative	German	Bauch	[baʊx]	abdomen
	voiced velar fricative	Margi	ɣàfə́	[ɣàfə́]	arrow
	voiceless labial-velar approximant	English	which^[1]	[ʍɪtʃ]	which
	velar approximant	Spanish	pagar^[2]	[paɰaɾ]	to pay
	velar lateral approximant	Mid-Wahgi	aʟaʟe	[aʟaʟe]	dizzy
	labial-velar approximant	English	witch	[wɪtʃ]	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.^[3]

Notes

^ In dialects that distinguish between which and witch.
^ Intervocalic g in Spanish often described instead as a very lightly articulated voiced velar fricative.^{[citation needed]}
^ The International phonetic Alphabet

		Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		Medical Dictionary. The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Read more
		WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. Read more
		Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Velar consonant". Read more
		Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more

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