ARTICLE
from the
Encyclopædia Britannica
palatal, in phonetics, a consonant sound produced by raising the blade, or front, of the tongue toward or against the hard palate just behind the alveolar ridge (the gums). The German ch sound in ich and the French gn (pronounced ny) in agneau are palatal consonants. English has no purely palatal consonants, except for the y sound (a semivowel) in “you.” (The sh sound in “ship” and the zh sound represented as z in “azure” are usually classified as palato-alveolar sounds.)
Aspects of the topic palatal are discussed in the following places at Britannica.
Assorted References
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Eurasian language union (in Uralic languages: Vowel harmony)
...are said to be characterized by two features: (1) the absence of a tonal accent (changes in pitch that change meaning, as is found in Chinese, Swedish, or Serbian) and (2) the contrast of plain and palatalized consonants (as in Russian). The distinction between palatalized and nonpalatalized consonants has the same acoustic basis as the contrast of front and back vowels (i.e., palatalized...
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Romance languages (in Romance languages: Consonants)
One noticeable difference between Latin and all the Romance languages is that the consonantal systems of the latter include a number of palatal and palato-alveolar consonants which did not exist in Latin. (Palatal consonants are formed with the tongue touching the hard palate; palato-alveolar sounds are made with the tongue touching the region of the alveolar ridge or the palate.) One...
Other
The following is a selection of items (artistic styles or groups, constructions, events, fictional characters, organizations, publications) associated with "palatal"
