Voiced velar plosive

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Because of technical restrictions the symbol for the voiced velar plosive might be rendered as an uppercase Y instead of an opentail lower-case g on your system.

IPA – number	110
IPA – text	ɡ
IPA – image
Entity	ɡ
X-SAMPA	g
Kirshenbaum	g
Sound sample (help·info)

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 ɡ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is g. Strictly, the IPA symbol is the so-called "opentail G" , though the "looptail G" is considered an acceptable alternative. The Unicode character "Latin small letter G" (U+0067) renders as either an opentail G or a looptail G depending on font, while the character "Latin small letter script G" (U+0261) is always an opentail G, but is generally available only in fonts with the IPA Extensions character block.

Of the six plosives that would be expected from the most common pattern world-wide, that is, three places of articulation plus voicing ([p b, t d, k ɡ]), [p] and [ɡ] are the most frequently missing, being absent in about 10% of languages that otherwise have this pattern.^{[citation needed]} The former is an areal feature (see Voiceless bilabial plosive).^{[citation needed]} Missing [ɡ], on the other hand, is widely scattered around the world.^{[citation needed]} (A few languages, such as Modern Standard Arabic and Ket, are missing both.) It seems that [ɡ] is somewhat more difficult to articulate than the other basic plosives. 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 [ɡ] for as long as it is in [d] or [b].^{[citation needed]} This could have two effects: [ɡ] and [k] might become confused, and the distinction is lost, or perhaps a [ɡ] never develops when a language first starts making voicing distinctions.^{[citation needed]} (with uvulars, where there is even less space between the glottis and tongue for airflow, the imbalance is more extreme: Voiced [ɢ] is much rarer than voiceless [q]^{[citation needed]}). Many Indian languages, such as Hindi, have a two-way contrast between aspirated and plain [g].

Contents 1 Features 2 Varieties of [ɡ] 3 Occurrence 4 See also 5 References 6 Bibliography

[edit] Features

Features of the voiced velar plosive:

• 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.

[edit] Varieties of [ɡ]

IPA	Description
ɡ	plain g
ɡʱ or ɡ̈	breathy voiced or murmured g
ɡʲ	palatalized g
ɡʷ	labialized g
ɡ̚	unreleased g
ɡ̊	voiceless or slack voice g

[edit] Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Abkhaz		ажыга	[aˈʐəɡa]	'shovel'	See Abkhaz phonology
Arabic[1]	Egyptian	راجل	[ɾˤɑːˈɡil]	'man'	See Arabic phonology
	Some Yemeni dialects	قال	[ɡɑːl]	'he said'
Catalan[2]		gros	[ˈɡɾɔs]	'large'	See Catalan phonology
Czech		gram	[ɡram]	'gramme'	See Czech phonology
Dutch[3]		zakdoek	[ˈzɑɡduk]	'handkerchief'	See Dutch phonology
English		gash	[ˈɡæʃ]	'gash'	See English phonology
French[4]		gain	[ɡɛ̃]	'earnings'	See French phonology
Georgian[5]		გული	[ˈɡuli]	'back'
German		Lüge	[ˈlyːɡə]	'lie'	See German phonology
Greek		γκάρισμα	[ˈɡarizma]	'donkey's bray'	See Modern Greek phonology
Hindi		गाना	[ɡɑnɑ]	'song'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology
Hungarian		engedély	[ɛŋɡɛdeːj]	'permission'	See Hungarian phonology
Italian[6]		gare	[ˈɡare]	'competitions'	See Italian phonology
Japanese[7]		がん•癌/gan	[ɡaɴ]	'cancer'	See Japanese phonology
Norwegian		gull	[ɡʉl]	'gull'	See Norwegian phonology
Polish[8]		gmin	[ɡmʲin] (help·info)	'plebs'	See Polish phonology
Portuguese[9]		língua	[ˈlĩɡwɐ]	'tongue'	See Portuguese phonology
Russian[10]		голова	[ɡəlɐˈva]	'head'	See Russian phonology
Somali		gaabi	[ɡaːbi]	'to shorten'	See Somali phonology
Spanish[11]		gato	[ˈɡato̞]	'cat'	See Spanish phonology
Turkish		göl	[ɡœl]	'lake'	See Turkish phonology

[edit] See also

• List of phonetics topics

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

• Carbonell, Joan F. & Joaquim Llisterri (1992), "Catalan", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (1-2): 53-56
• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 25 (2): 90-94
• Fougeron, Cecile & Caroline L Smith (1993), "Illustrations of the IPA:French", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 23 (2): 73-76
• Gussenhoven, Carlos (1992), "Dutch", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (2): 45-47
• Jassem, Wiktor (2003), "Polish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (1): 103-107
• Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Ana Ma. Fernández-Planas & Josefina Carrera-Sabaté (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255-259
• Okada, Hideo (1991), "Phonetic Representation:Japanese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 21 (2): 94-97
• Padgett, Jaye (2003), "Contrast and Post-Velar Fronting in Russian", Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 21 (1): 39-87
• Rogers, Derek & Luciana d'Arcangeli (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 117-121
• Shosted, Ryan K. & Chikovani Vakhtang (2006), "Standard Georgian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36 (2): 255-264
• Watson, Janet (2002), written at New York, The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, Oxford University Press

Consonants (List, table)	See also: IPA, Vowels
Pulmonics Bila​bial Labio​dental Den​tal Alve​olar Post-​alve​olar Retro​flex Pal​a​tal Ve​lar Uvu​lar Pha​ryn​geal Epi​glot​tal Glot​tal Non-pulmonics and other symbols Nasals m ɱ n̪ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ Clicks  ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ Plosives p b p̪ b̪ t̪ d̪ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Implo­­sives  ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ Fricatives  ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Ejec­­tives  pʼ tʼ kʼ qʼ sʼ Approximants  ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ Affricates  t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ t͡ɕ d͡ʑ t͡ʂ d͡ʐ t͡ɬ d͡ɮ p̪͡f Trills ʙ r • ʀ • Other laterals  ɺ • ɫ Flaps & Taps • ѵ ɾ ɽ • • Co-articulated fricatives  ɕ ʑ ɧ Lat. Fricatives ɬ ɮ • • • Co-articulated approximants  ʍ w ɥ Lat. Appr'mants l ɭ ʎ ʟ Co-articulated stops  k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m
This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged impossible.