Palatal consonant

A palatal consonant is a consonant that is pronounced with the body (the middle part) of the tongue against the hard palate (which is the middle part of the roof of the mouth). There is only one palatal consonant in English which is [j], which is the sound for "y" in the English word "yes". The most common palatal consonant used in the world is [j].

Palatal consonant in IPA

These are the palatal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet:

IPA	Description	Example
		Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
	palatal nasal	French	agneau	[aɲo]	lamb
	voiceless palatal plosive	Hungarian	hattyú	[hɒcːuː]	swan
	voiced palatal plosive	Latvian	ģimene	[ɟimene]	family
	voiceless palatal fricative	German	nicht	[nɪçt]	not
	voiced palatal fricative	Spanish	yema	[ʝema]	egg yolk
	palatal approximant	English	yes	[jɛs]	yes
	palatal lateral approximant	Italian	gli	[ʎi]	the (masculine plural)
	voiced palatal implosive	Swahili	hujambo	[huʄambo]	hello
	palatal click	Nǁng	ǂoo	[ǂoo]	man, male