Palatal

From Glottopedia
Revision as of 11:06, 18 February 2009 by Wohlgemuth (talk | contribs) (+utrecht)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

A palatal segment is a segment that is articulated in such a way that the oral cavity is narrowed or closed by raising the tongue blade towards the hard palate.

Examples

Dutch and English [j] (cf. jigsaw).

Examples of palatals are the sound [ɳ] (written ñ) in Spanish niño 'child', and the sound [c] (written ty) in Hungarian atya 'father'.


Origin

Derived from palate (borrowed into English from Latin palatum), and attested since the 17th century.

Comments

"Palatal" is a term also used for vowels: front vowels are palatal, as opposed to back vowels, which are velar.

Other languages

REF This article has no reference(s) or source(s).
Please remove this block only when the problem is solved.


Links

Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics