Palatal

If you're a native English speaker, palatal consonants are probably less familiar to you than consonants with a different place of articulation. Palatal plosives, fricatives, and nasals are present in languages across Asia and Europe, but they don't exist as phonemes in English. In fact, the only palatal consonant present as a phoneme in English is the [j] sound at the beginning of yellow. Even so, once you understand how palatal sounds are produced, you may notice a variety of palatal consonants showing up in your everyday speech.

What is the Meaning of Palatal?

The meaning of the term palatal is the description of sounds that involve the hard palate.

Where exactly is this hard palate, then? If you feel around the roof of your mouth with your tongue, you'll feel a hard, bony area that eventually drops off to the fleshy area at the back of your mouth. This bony section is the hard palate.

How Are Palatal Sounds Produced?

Palatal sounds are produced with various manners of articulation. They all involve a constriction of airflow between the tensed tongue and the hard palate. If you make the [j] sound, like the y in yellow, you'll feel the front or center area of your tongue rise towards your hard palate. In this sound, the tongue gets close to the hard palate but doesn't touch it. In a different consonant, like a palatal plosive, the tongue would completely close off airflow at the hard palate.

Fig. 2 - When producing palatal sounds, the front or center of the tongue rises toward the hard palate.

Here are some other notes on the production of palatal sounds.

• Some productions of palatal sounds are coronal, meaning that they are produced with the tongue's front (specifically, the "blade").
• Other productions of palatal sounds utilize the central body of the tongue and thus are not coronal. The part of the tongue used depends on the speaker and the neighboring sounds.
• Vowels are not often described as "palatal," but some vowels contain a slight constriction at the hard palate. Say the vowel [i] as in pizza, and you'll feel your tongue tense up near the palate.

Palatal Consonants

Palatal consonants are a type of speech sound produced by raising the middle part of the tongue to the hard palate, which is the hard part of the roof of the mouth. The specific articulation can vary, leading to different types of palatal consonants. In English, an example of a palatal consonant is the "y" sound in "yes".

Palatal consonants appear as phonemes in many of the world's languages. Even when they don't appear as phonemes, they are often present in languages as allophones. As a reminder:

There are seven palatal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Palatal Plosive

Palatal plosives are produced with complete closure between the tongue and hard palate. The closure briefly blocks and then releases airflow from the lungs, creating a burst of air.

In the voiceless palatal plosive [c], voicing (periodic opening and closing of the glottis) begins after the burst of air. An example of the voiceless palatal plosive is in the Vietnamese word chị [cɪj˨˩˨], meaning older sister.

In the voiced palatal plosive [ɟ], voicing begins at the same time as — or even before — the burst of air as the plosive releases. You can hear this in the Latvian word ģimene [ˈɟime̞ne̞], which means family.

Palatal Approximant

The palatal approximant, as you've already seen, is the [j] sound in yellow [jɛləʊ] and cue [kjuː]. This sound is essentially a very brief [i] vowel. It's also characterized as a semivowel.

Palatal Lateral Approximant

The palatal lateral approximant is represented by the lambda symbol [ʎ]. In this sound, the tongue blade touches the hard palate but allows air to flow around the sides of the tongue. If you're a native English speaker, you probably produce this sound without realizing it. Say the word lion, and then say the word million. Your tongue probably doesn't land in the same place for both /l/ sounds! The /l/ in million is often realized as the allophone [ʎ]. This happens because the following palatal approximant [j] "pulls" the [l] sound back to its place of articulation.

Palatal Fricative

When you imitate the sound of a cat hissing, you probably produce a palatal fricative. The front or center of your tongue tenses up at the hard palate, leaving a small gap. You then force air quickly through the gap, creating a hissing sound.

The voiceless palatal fricative [ç] is common as a phoneme or allophone in many European and Asian languages. You can hear it in the German word nicht [[nɪçt], meaning not, as well as in the Japanese word 人 [çi̥to̞], meaning human.

The voiceless palatal fricative appears in English as an allophone of the /h/ phoneme. If you say holly and human, you may notice that you produce them with slightly different /h/ sounds. The /h/ sound in holly is a voiceless glottal fricative; this is the "normal" realization of the /h/ phoneme in English. In human, /h/ is followed by our old friend, the palatal approximant [j]. The /h/ assimilates to the palatal position of the [j] sound, turning the glottal fricative [h] into the palatal fricative [ç].

The voiced palatal fricative [ʝ] is rare as a phoneme but relatively common as an allophone. For example, it sometimes occurs in Spanish as an allophone of [j]. You can hear this in the word amarillo [amaɾiʝo], meaning yellow.

Palatal Nasal

The palatal nasal [ɲ] is produced with the same constriction as a palatal plosive: the front or center of the tongue closes off airflow at the hard palate. The only difference in the case of the palatal nasal is that the velum (or soft palate) is lowered, allowing air to flow through the nasal cavity.

The IPA symbol for the palatal nasal [ɲ] is a combination of [j] and [n]—[j] represents the palatal constriction, and [n] represents the nasality.

The palatal nasal is present as a phoneme in Spanish, written as the letter ñ. You can hear it in the word niño [niɲo], meaning boy.

Fig. 3 - A palatal nasal is a palatal consonant produced with a lowered velum, which allows air to pass through the nasal cavity.