Palatal consonant facts for kids

A palatal consonant is a special type of consonant sound. You make these sounds by pressing the middle part of your tongue against the middle part of the roof of your mouth. This part of your mouth is called the hard palate.

Think of the "y" sound in the English word "yes." That's a palatal consonant! It's the only one we use regularly in English. Many other languages have more palatal sounds.

Understanding Palatal Sounds

When you make a sound, your tongue moves in different ways inside your mouth. For palatal sounds, your tongue goes up and touches or gets very close to the hard palate. This creates a specific kind of sound.

How We Make Palatal Sounds

Imagine your mouth. The roof of your mouth has a hard, bony part in the front and middle. This is your hard palate. When you say a palatal sound, the middle of your tongue lifts up. It either touches this hard palate completely or comes very close to it.

• Touching the palate: For some palatal sounds, your tongue actually touches the hard palate, blocking the air for a moment.
• Close to the palate: For other palatal sounds, your tongue gets very close, letting air squeeze through a narrow gap.

Palatal Consonants Around the World

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a special system that linguists (people who study language) use to write down every sound in every language. Here are some examples of palatal consonants from different languages:

IPA Symbol	What it sounds like	Example
		Language	How it's written	How it sounds (IPA)	Meaning
	Palatal nasal (like "ny" in "canyon")	French	agneau	/aɲo/	lamb
	Voiceless palatal plosive (a sharp "ty" sound)	Hungarian	hattyú	/hɒtːjuː/	swan
	Voiced palatal plosive (a sharp "dy" sound)	Latvian	ģimene	/ɟimene/	family
	Voiceless palatal fricative (like "ch" in German "ich")	German	nicht	/nɪçt/	not
	Voiced palatal fricative (like "y" in some Spanish words)	Spanish	yema	/ˈʝema/	egg yolk
	Palatal approximant (the "y" in English "yes")	English	yes	/jɛs/	yes
	Palatal lateral approximant (like "gli" in Italian)	Italian	gli	/ʎi/	the (masculine plural)
	Voiced palatal implosive (a "j" sound made by sucking air in)	Swahili	hujambo	/huʄambo/	hello
	Palatal click (a click sound made with the palate)	Nǁng	ǂoo	/ǂoo/	man, male

See also

In Spanish: Consonante palatal para niños