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.

Warning: the IPA symbols <c, ɟ> are commonly used, not for palatal stops, but for the palatalized velar stops [kʲ, ɡʲ], or the palatal affricates [c͡ç, ɟ͡ʝ], or the alveolopalatal affricates [t͡ɕ, d͡ʑ], or even the postalveolar affricates [t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ]. 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 <c, ɟ> 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 [ʃ] (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
IPA	Description	Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
	palatal nasal	French	agneau	[aɲo]	lamb
	voiceless palatal plosive	Hungarian	hattyú	[hɒcːuː]	swan
	voiced palatal plosive	Margi	ɟaɗí	[ɟaɗí]	hump of a cow
	voiceless palatal fricative	German	nicht	[nɪçt]	not
	voiced palatal fricative	Spanish	yema	[ʝema]	egg yolk
	palatal approximant	English	yes	[jɛs]	yes
	lateral palatal approximant	Italian	gli	[ʎi]	the (masculine plural)
	voiced palatal implosive	Swahili	hujambo	[huʄambo]	hello

[edit] See also

Consonants (List, table)

Palatal consonant

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[edit] See also

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