Voiced velar plosive

A voiced velar plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages.

Some languages have a voiced pre-velar plosive, 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.

Conversely, some languages have a voiced post-velar plosive, which is articulated slightly behind the place of articulation of the prototypical velar plosive, though not as back as the prototypical uvular plosive.

IPA symbol

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

Features

File:Voiced velar plosive.svg

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 Template:Angbr or less commonly of Template:Angbr.

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 .

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 phonology
Adyghe	Shapsug	/gägwaĺa	Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'toy'	Dialectal. Corresponds to in other dialects.
	Temirgoy	/ čëgë	Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'tree'	Dialectal. Corresponds to in other dialects.
Albanian				'donkey'
ArabicTemplate:Sfnp	Moroccan	Template:Script/Arabic / ʾagādīr		'Agadir'
	Tunisian	Template:Script/Arabic / gafṣa	Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'Gafsa'	See Tunisian arabic phonology
	Hejazi	/ gamar		'moon'	Corresponds to Template:IPAblink in Classical and Modern Standard Arabic.
	Najdi
	Sa'idi
	Yemeni	/ gāl		'(he) said'	Pronunciation of Template:Angbr in San'ani and Hadhrami dialects
		/ gamal		'camel'	Pronunciation of Template:Angbr in Ta'izzi-Adeni and Tihami dialects
	Egyptian	/ rāgel		'man'	See Egyptian arabic phonology
Armenian	EasternTemplate:Sfnp	/gandz	Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'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 phonology
Breton				'goat'
Bulgarian		гора/gora		'forest'	See Bulgarian phonology
CatalanTemplate:Sfnp				'glove'	See Catalan phonology
Chechen		/gowr		'horse'
Czech				'gram'	See Czech phonology
Danish	StandardTemplate:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp			'happiness'	Only partially voiced; possible allophone of in the intervocalic position. More often voiceless Template:IPAblink.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp See Danish phonology
Dutch	All dialects		Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'tissue'	Allophone of , occurring only before voiced consonants in native words. See Dutch phonology
	Many speakers	goal	Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'goal'	Only in loanwords. Some speakers may realize it as Template:IPAblink ~ Template:IPAblink ~ Template:IPAblink ~ Template:IPAblink (like a normal Dutch Template:Angbr), or as Template:IPAblink.
	Amelands	goëd		'good'
English				'gaggle'	See English phonology
Filipino				'commotion'
FrenchTemplate:Sfnp				'earnings'	See French phonology
GeorgianTemplate:Sfnp		/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
ItalianTemplate:Sfnp				'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.
JapaneseTemplate:Sfnp		/		'overcoat'	See Japanese phonology
Kabardian	Baslaney	/ gäna	Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'shirt'	Dialectal. Corresponds to in other dialects.
KagayanenTemplate:Sfnp				'spirit'
Khmer		/		'gas'	See Khmer phonology
Korean		/		'catfish'	See Korean phonology
Limburgish		zegke		'say'	Common. Example from the Weert dialect.
Lithuanian		garai		'steam'	See Lithuanian phonology
LuxembourgishTemplate:Sfnp				'gone about'	More often voiceless Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp See Luxembourgish phonology
Macedonian		/grom		'thunder'	See Macedonian phonology
Malay				'sack'
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/guşt		'meat'
PolishTemplate:Sfnp			Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'plebs'	See Polish phonology
PortugueseTemplate:Sfnp				'tongue'	See Portuguese phonology
Punjabi		ਗਾਂ/gaa		'cow'
Romanian				'thought'	See Romanian phonology
RussianTemplate:Sfnp		/golova	Template:ErrorTemplate:Category handlerTemplate:Category handler	'head'	See Russian phonology
Serbo-CroatianTemplate:Sfnp		/		'guest'	See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Slovak				'lymph'	See Slovak phonology
Slovene				'guest'	See Slovene phonology
Somali				'to shorten'	See Somali phonology
Southern Min	Hokkien	我/góa		'I'
SpanishTemplate:Sfnp				'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
UkrainianTemplate:Sfnp		/ ganok		'porch'	See Ukrainian phonology
Welsh		gwyn	[ɡwɪn] or [ɡwɨ̞n]	'white'	See Welsh phonology
West Frisian				'buckle' (n.)	See West Frisian phonology
Wu	Shanghainese	狂/guaon6	[ɡuɑ̃23]	'crazy'
Xiang		共/wong		'together'
Yi		/		'hear'
Zapotec	TilquiapanTemplate:Sfnp	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

External links

• Template:Phoible