Velar

When it comes to vocal tract anatomy, the velum is probably less familiar to you than the lips, teeth, and tongue. Located at the back of your mouth, the velum allows you to produce both nasal sounds and velar consonants, like velar plosives and fricatives. These are not the easiest sounds to produce—in the case of velar fronting, children sometimes substitute them with simpler sounds—but they are present and meaningful in most of the world's languages.

What is the Meaning of Velar?

When you make sounds like k and g, you can feel the back of your tongue touching the velum.

Fig. 1 - The velum is located behind the hard palate at the back of the mouth.

The velum is responsible for velar consonants in spoken languages. Velar consonants are a type of consonant sound produced by obstructing the airflow in the vocal tract with the back of the tongue against the soft part of the roof of the mouth, known as the velum. This is why they are called "velar," as the term comes from the Latin word 'velum' meaning 'veil' or 'covering'. Velar consonants are common in many languages, including English.

The velar consonants in English are [k], [g], and [ŋ] (the ng sound at the end of sing). These symbols represent the velar plosives and velar nasal in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

In English, some examples of velar consonants include:

1. Voiceless velar stop [k] as in the word "kick" /kɪk/.
2. Voiced velar stop [g] as in the word "go" /goʊ/.
3. Voiceless velar fricative [x] as in the Scottish pronunciation of "loch" /lɔx/.
4. Voiced velar nasal [ŋ] as in the word "sing" /sɪŋ/.

These examples show how the back of the tongue is used to create a blockage in the airflow at the velum, which is released to produce the specific velar consonant sounds.

Velar Plosives

A plosive is also called an oral stop.

The velar plosives are the voiceless [k] and voiced [g] sounds. These are also known as velar oral stops.

When you produce a velar plosive, you bring the body of your tongue to your velum and block your nasal cavity with your velum, completely cutting off the airflow from your lungs. Pressure builds up behind this constriction and creates a burst of air when released. If the velar plosive is voiced, the vocal folds are in vibration during the closure.

Fig. 2 - During a velar plosive, the body of the tongue touches the velum, cutting off airflow from the lungs.

Velar Fricatives

Velar fricatives are produced in the same place as velar plosives but in a different manner.

Unlike velar plosives, velar fricatives are not phonemes in English. In other words, a velar fricative can't set one word apart from another in English. That said, the sound of a velar fricative can sneak into some English expressions. A groan of frustration (think "ugh") often ends with a velar fricative.

Velar fricatives are produced with a constriction between the body of the tongue and the velum, just like velar plosives. In a velar fricative, though, the constriction does not completely cut off airflow from the lungs. Instead, it forces air to move quickly through the constriction, creating turbulent noise. If you produce a [k] sound and release it very slowly, you can hear the sound of a voiceless velar fricative.

Even though they're not phonemes in English, velar fricatives are present as phonemes in several other languages. Arabic, for example, makes use of velar fricatives. The voiceless velar fricative [x] is present in words like khabar ['xabar], meaning news. You can hear the voiced velar fricative in the word balagha [ba'laːɣa], which means rhetoric.

Other Velar Sounds

Plosives and fricatives aren't the only consonants that involve the velum. The structure is necessary for producing other consonants and plays a special role in nasal sounds.

Nasal Sounds

The velum allows you to produce nasal consonants (or nasal stops). Nasal stops are like oral stops; they involve a constriction that keeps air from flowing through the mouth. In a nasal stop, though, the velum lowers to allow air to pass through the nose.

The nasal stops encountered in English are [m], [n], and [ŋ].

When you produce a velar nasal, your tongue is in the same position as it is for a velar plosive, but your velum itself is lowered. Instead of cutting off the sound, it allows air to continue flowing through your nose.

Fig. 3 - During nasal stops, the velum lowers to allow air to pass through the nasal cavity.

Other Velar Consonants

The velar plosives, velar fricatives, and velar nasal are some of the most common velar consonants, but there are others that appear in many languages. Here is a more complete list of the velar consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Velar Fronting

As mentioned earlier, while velar plosives are present in most of the world's languages, they're difficult to produce compared to other plosives. This is because sounds at the back of the mouth require more movement and greater changes in air pressure than sounds at the front of the mouth. Try repeating a [b] sound to yourself as rapidly as possible, and then do the same with a [g] sound. You probably can't produce the [g] sound as quickly or as cleanly as the [b] sound!

Children sometimes have trouble producing velar sounds as they learn to speak and replace them with other sounds closer to the front of the mouth. This pattern is called velar fronting.

A child who uses velar fronting may replace the [g] and [k] sounds with [d] or [t]. They may pronounce grapes as drapes or cup as tup. The pattern of velar fronting usually goes away as the child gets older. If the pattern doesn't seem to go away on its own, a speech-language pathologist can help teach the child to produce velar consonants.