In
phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...
and
phonology
Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...
, a velar stop is a type of consonantal sound, made with the back of the tongue in contact with the
soft palate
The soft palate (also known as the velum, palatal velum, or muscular palate) is, in mammals, the soft biological tissue, tissue constituting the back of the roof of the mouth. The soft palate is part of the palate of the mouth; the other part is ...
(also known as the velum, hence
velar), held tightly enough to block the passage of air (hence a
stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...
). The most common sounds are the stops and , as in English ''cut'' and ''gut''. More generally, several kinds are distinguished:
* ,
voiceless velar plosive
The voiceless velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is k.
The sound is a ver ...
* ,
voiced velar plosive
The voiced velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many Speech communication, spoken languages.
Some languages have the voiced pre-velar plosive, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulat ...
* ,
voiced velar nasal
* ,
voiceless velar nasal
* ,
velar ejective
* ,
voiced velar implosive (rare)
* or ,
voiceless velar implosive (unattested in normal words; some English speakers use it to imitate the "
glug-glug" sound of liquid being poured from a bottle)
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Velar consonants
Plosives