Voiced velar plosive - Definition and Overview

IPA - Unicode	g
IPA - image
X-SAMPA	g
Kirshenbaum	g
Sound sample

The voiced velar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is g, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is g. The voiceless velar plosive occurs in English, and it is the sound denoted by the letter "g" in gum or bug.

Features of this consonant:

• Its manner of articulation is plosive or stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
• Its place of articulation is velar which means it is articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the velum).
• Its phonation type is voiced, which means it is produced while the vocal cords are vibrating.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

Varieties of [g]

In English

In English, the sound /g/ is denoted by the letter "g" as in gum or bag. However, the letter "g" does not always denote the sound /g/. When followed by "i" or "e" or preceded by d it sometimes denotes the affricate /dʒ/, as in gin and judgment. When preceded by "n" and occurring at the end of a morpheme, it often becomes the digraph "ng", which denotes the velar nasal and "g" is not pronounced, as in singer and rung, but not finger.

In other languages

The [g] sound is a common sound cross-linguistically. Many languages have at least a plain [g], and some distinguish more than variety. Many Indian languages, such as Hindi, have a two-way contrast between aspirated (breathy voice) and plain [g].