velopharyngeal consonant

{{Short description|Sounds found in some disordered speech}}

{{Infobox IPA

| above = Voiceless velopharyngeal fricative

| ipa symbol = ʩ

| decimal = 681

| imagefile = IPA Unicode 0x02A9.svg

| imagesize = 150px

}}

{{Infobox IPA

| above = Voiced velopharyngeal fricative

| ipa symbol = ʩ̬

}}

{{Infobox IPA

| above = Voiceless velopharyngeal trill

| ipa symbol = 𝼀

| ipa symbol2 = ʩ𐞪

| decimal = 122624

| imagefile = IPA Unicode 1xDF00.svg

| imagesize = 150px

}}

The velopharyngeal fricatives, also known as the posterior nasal fricatives, are a family of sounds produced by some children with speech disorders, including some with a cleft palate, as a substitute for sibilants (in English, {{IPA|/s, z, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ, tr, dr/}}), which cannot be produced with a cleft palate. It results from "the approximation but inadequate closure of the upper border of the velum and the posterior pharyngeal wall."Martin Duckworth, George Allen, William Hardcastle & Martin Ball (1990) 'Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for the transcription of atypical speech'. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 4: 4, p. 276. To produce a velopharyngeal fricative, the soft palate approaches the pharyngeal wall and narrows the velopharyngeal port, such that the restricted port creates fricative turbulence in air forced through it into the nasal cavity. The articulation may be aided by a posterior positioning of the tongue and may involve velar flutter (a snorting sound).Arnold Aronson & Diane Thieme (2009) Clinical Voice DisordersLinda Vallino, Dennis Ruscello & David Zajac (2017) Cleft Palate Speech and Resonance: An Audio and Video Resource, p. 30–32.

The term 'velopharyngeal' indicates "articulation between the upper surface of the velum and the back wall of the naso-pharynx."Bertil Malmberg & Louise Kaiser (1968) Manual of phonetics, North-Holland, p. 325.

The base symbol for a velopharyngeal fricative in the extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for disordered speech is {{angbr IPA|ʩ}}, and secondary articulation is indicated with a double tilde, {{angbr IPA|◌͌}}. The following variants are described:

• A voiceless velopharyngeal fricative {{IPA|[ʩ]}}
• A voiced velopharyngeal fricative {{IPA|[ʩ̬]}}
• A velopharyngeal fricative trill or "snort" (much as epiglottal fricatives tend to be trilled):
• voiceless {{IPA|[𝼀]}}
• voiced {{IPA|[𝼀̬]}}
• Other consonants accompanied by velopharyngeal frication, such as {{IPA|[s͌]}} = {{IPA|[s𐞐]}},A double tilde might be confused with doubling the nasal tilde used to indicate that a sound is heavily nasalized potentially transcribed with an additional {{angbr IPA|𐞪}} to overtly indicate accompanying trill.

{{Infobox IPA

| above = Velopharyngeal frication

| ipa symbol = ◌͌

| ipa symbol2 = ◌𐞐

}}

The letter for the trill was only adopted in 2015; before then the letter {{angbr IPA|ʩ}} stood for both. Some authorities describe the trilled velopharyngeals as being accompanied by uvular trill rather than velar flutter. Whether this is a difference in interpretation or of pronunciation, it would be explicitly transcribed with a superscript {{angbr|ʀ}}: voiceless {{IPA|[ʩ𐞪]}} and voiced {{IPA|[ʩ̬𐞪]}}.