Palatal consonant

Template:Place of articulation Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex.

The most common type of palatal consonant is the extremely common approximant Template:IPA, which ranks as overall, among the ten most common sounds in the world's languages. The nasal Template:IPA is also common, occurring in around 35 percent of the world's languages, in most of which its equivalent obstruent is not the plosive Template:IPA, but the affricate [[voiceless postalveolar affricate|Template:IPA]]. Only a few languages in northern Eurasia, the Americas and central Africa contrast palatal plosives with postalveolar affricates - the only common ones being Hungarian, Czech, Slovak and Albanian.

Warning: the IPA symbols Template:IPA are commonly used, not for palatal stops, but for the palatalized velar stops Template:IPA, or the palatal affricates Template:IPA, or the alveolopalatal affricates Template:IPA, or even the postalveolar affricates Template:IPA. This is an old IPA tradition. True palatal stops are relatively uncommon, so it is a good idea to verify the pronunciation whenever you see Template:IPA in the transcription of a language.

Consonants with other primary articulations may be palatalised, that is, accompanied by the raising of the tongue surface towards the hard palate. For example, English Template:IPA (spelled sh) has such a palatal component, although its primary articulation involves the tip of the tongue and the upper gum (this type of articulation is called palatoalveolar). The palatal consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPA	Description	Example
		Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
File:Xsampa-J.png	palatal nasal	French	agneau	[[[:Template:IPA]]Template:IPATemplate:IPA]	lamb
File:Xsampa-c.png	voiceless palatal plosive	Hungarian	hattyú	[[[:Template:IPA]]Template:IPATemplate:IPA]	swan
File:Xsampa-Jslash.png	voiced palatal plosive	Margi	Template:IPATemplate:IPA	[Template:IPATemplate:IPA]	hump of a cow
File:Xsampa-C2.png	voiceless palatal fricative	German	nicht	[[[:Template:IPA]]Template:IPATemplate:IPA]	not
File:Xsampa-jslash2.png	voiced palatal fricative	Spanish	yema	[Template:IPATemplate:IPA]	egg yolk
File:Xsampa-j2.png	palatal approximant	English	yes	[Template:IPATemplate:IPA]	yes
File:Xsampa-L2.png	palatal lateral approximant	Italian	gli	[Template:IPATemplate:IPA]	the (masculine plural)
File:Xsampa-Jslash lessthan.png	voiced palatal implosive	Swahili	hujambo	[huTemplate:IPATemplate:IPA]	hello

See also

• Place of articulation
• List of phonetics topics