A voiced velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the "g" sound in "against".

Some languages have a voiced pre-velar plosive,Instead of "pre-velar", it can be called "advanced velar", "fronted velar", "front-velar", "palato-velar", "post-palatal", "retracted palatal" or "backed palatal". which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical velar plosive, though not as front as the prototypical palatal plosive; see .

Conversely, some languages have a voiced post-velar plosive,Instead of "post-velar", it can be called "retracted velar", "backed velar", "pre-uvular", "advanced uvular" or "fronted uvular". which is articulated slightly behind the place of articulation of the prototypical velar plosive, though not as back as the prototypical uvular plosive; see .

IPA symbol The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The traditional IPA symbol is the so-called single-storey or opentail G , but the double-storey or looptail G is acceptable. The Unicode character renders as either a single-storey G or a double-storey G depending on font; the character is always a single-storey G, but it is generally available only in fonts supporting the IPA Extensions Unicode character block.

Features

Features of a voiced velar stop:

Occurrence

Of the six stops that would be expected from the most common pattern worldwide—that is, three places of articulation plus voicing ()— and are the most frequently missing, being absent in about 10% of languages that otherwise have this pattern. The lack of a voiceless bilabial stop is an areal feature. Missing , (when the language uses voicing to contrast stops) on the other hand, is widely scattered around the world, for example /ɡ/ is not a native phoneme of Belarusian, Dutch, Czech, and Slovak and occurs only in borrowed words in those languages. A few languages, such as Modern Standard Arabic and part of the Levantine dialects (e.g. Lebanese and Syrian), are missing both, although most of the other Arabic dialects have in their native phonemic systems as a reflex of or less commonly of .

It seems that is somewhat more difficult to articulate than the other basic stops. Ian Maddieson speculates that this may be due to a physical difficulty in voicing velars: Voicing requires that air flow into the mouth cavity, and the relatively small space allowed by the position of velar consonants means that it will fill up with air quickly, making voicing difficult to maintain in for as long as it is in or . This could have two effects: and might become confused, and the distinction is lost, or perhaps a never develops when a language first starts making voicing distinctions. With uvulars, where there is even less space between the glottis and tongue for airflow, the imbalance is more extreme: voiced is much rarer than voiceless .WALS Online : Chapter 5 – Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems

In many Indo-Aryan languages, such as Hindustani, plain and aspirated are in contrastive distribution.

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Abkhaz /ažëga 'shovel' See Abkhaz phonologyAdyghe Shapsug /gägwaĺa 'toy' Dialectal. Corresponds to in other dialects. Temirgoy / čëgë 'tree' Dialectal. Corresponds to in other dialects. Albanian 'donkey'ArabicMoroccan / ʾagādīr'Agadir' Tunisian / gafṣa 'Gafsa'See Tunisian arabic phonology Hejazi / gamar 'moon' Corresponds to in Classical and Modern Standard Arabic.NajdiSa'idi Yemeni / gāl '(he) said' Pronunciation of in San'ani and Hadhrami dialects / gamal'camel'Pronunciation of in Ta'izzi-Adeni and Tihami dialectsEgyptian / rāgel'man'See Egyptian arabic phonology Armenian Eastern /ganź 'treasure' Assyrian ܓܢܐ 'self' Used predominantly in Urban Koine. Corresponds to in Urmia, some Tyari and Jilu dialects. Azerbaijani / قارا 'black' Basque 'lose' Bengali গান/gan 'song' Contrasts with aspirated form. See Bengali phonologyBreton 'goat' Bulgarian гора/gora 'forest' See Bulgarian phonology Catalan 'glove' See Catalan phonology Chechen /govr 'horse' Czech 'gram' See Czech phonology Danish Standard 'happiness' Only partially voiced; possible allophone of in the intervocalic position. More often voiceless . See Danish phonology Dutch All dialects 'tissue' Allophone of , occurring only before voiced consonants in native words. See Dutch phonology Many speakers goal 'goal' Only in loanwords. Some speakers may realize it as ~ ~ ~ (like a normal Dutch ), or as . Amelands goëd 'good' English 'gaggle' See English phonology Filipino 'commotion' French 'earnings' See French phonology Georgian /guli 'heart' German 'lie' See Standard German phonology Greek / 'donkey's bray' See Modern Greek phonology Gujarati /gávu 'to sing' See Gujarati phonology Hebrew /gav 'back' See Modern Hebrew phonology Hindustani / 'song' Contrasts with aspirated form. See Hindustani phonology Hungarian 'permission' See Hungarian phonology Irish 'sand' See Irish phonology Italian 'competitions' [g] is represented by letter G when followed by vowels [a], [o] [u], while when in front of vowels [i], [e] and [ɛ], the pronunciation changes to d͡ʒ, for the phoneme [g] to appear on the vowels [i], [e] and [ɛ], the GH digraph is used. Japanese / 'overcoat' See Japanese phonology Kabardian Baslaney / gäna 'shirt' Dialectal. Corresponds to in other dialects. Kagayanen 'spirit' Khmer / 'gas' See Khmer phonology Korean / 'catfish' See Korean phonologyLimburgishzegke'say'Common. Example from the Weert dialect. Lithuanian garai 'steam' See Lithuanian phonology Luxembourgish 'gone about' More often voiceless . See Luxembourgish phonology Macedonian /grom 'thunder' See Macedonian phonology Malay 'sack'Malayalamഗപ്പി/gappi'guppy'See Malayalam phonology Marathi 'grass' See Marathi phonology Nepali 'village' Contrasts with aspirated form. See Nepali phonology Norwegian 'gold' See Norwegian phonology Odia ଗଛ/gočho 'tree' Contrasts with aspirated form. Persian گوشت/gušt 'meat' Polish 'plebs' See Polish phonology Portuguese 'tongue' See Portuguese phonology Punjabi ਗਾਂ/gaa'cow' RomanianDEX Online : 'thought' See Romanian phonology Russian /golova 'head' See Russian phonology Serbo-Croatian / 'guest' See Serbo-Croatian phonology Slovak 'lymph' See Slovak phonologySlovene'guest'See Slovene phonology Somali 'to shorten' See Somali phonologySouthern MinHokkien我/góa'I' Spanish 'cat' See Spanish phonology Swahili 'darkness' See Swahili phonology Swedish 'tasty' May be an approximant in casual speech. See Swedish phonology Telugu 'Floor' contrasts with aspirated form (which is articulated as breathy consonant). Turkish 'epidemic' See Turkish phonology Ukrainian / ganok 'porch' See Ukrainian phonologyWelshgwyn[ɡwɪn] or [ɡwɨ̞n]'white'See Welsh phonology West Frisian 'buckle' (n.) See West Frisian phonologyWuShanghainese狂/guaon6[ɡuɑ̃23]'crazy'Xiang共/wong'together' Yi / 'hear' Zapotec Tilquiapan gan 'will be able' Depending on speaker and carefulness of speech, may be lenited to

See also Index of phonetics articles Arabic letters specifically to create the phoneme /ɡ/ in loanwords: ج چ غ ق ڨ ك ڭ گ

Notes

References

External links