Velar Consonant - Lack of Velars

Lack of Velars

The velar consonant is the most common consonant in human languages. The only languages recorded to lack velars (or any dorsal consonant at all) may be Xavante and Tahitian. However, there are other languages that lack simple velars. An areal feature of the Pacific Northwest coast is that historical *k has become palatalized in many languages, often becoming, but in others, such as Saanich, Salish, and Chemakum, becoming . (Likewise, historical *k’ has become and historical *x has become ; there was no *g or *ŋ.)

However, all three languages retain a labiovelar series, as well as a uvular series. In the Northwest Caucasian languages historical * has also become palatalized, becoming /kʲ/ in Ubykh and /tʃ/ in most Circassian varieties, but, like the languages of the Pacific Northwest, they also retain a labialized-velar series as well as a complement of uvulars.

Apart from, no other velars is particularly common, even and, which occur in English. Of course, does not occur in languages that lack voiced stops, like Mandarin Chinese, but it is sporadically missing elsewhere. Of the languages surveyed in the World Atlas of Language Structures, about 10% of languages that otherwise have, such as Modern Standard Arabic, are missing .

Pirahã has both a and a phonetically. However, the does not behave as other consonants, and the argument has been made that it is phonemically /hi/, leaving Pirahã with only as an underlyingly velar consonant.

Hawaiian does not distinguish from ; the sound spelled k tends toward at the beginnings of utterances, before, and is variable elsewhere, especially in the dialect of Niʻihau and Kauaʻi. Since Hawaiian has no, and w similarly varies between and labial, it is not clear that it is meaningful to say that Hawaiian has velar consonants.

Several Khoisan languages, which have click consonants pronounced in the dorsal region, have limited numbers or distributions of pulmonic velar consonants. Khoekhoe, for example, does not allow them in medial or final position, but in Juǀʼhoansi, they are rare even in initial position.