Postvelar

Postvelar is a term used in phonetics and phonology to refer to a place of articulation situated behind the velum. It denotes consonantal sounds produced with the tongue in a posterior position relative to the velar area, typically described as lying in a region between velar and uvular places of articulation or at a border zone near the epilaryngeal area. The exact realization of postvelar consonants can vary across languages and analyses, and the category is not uniformly defined across studies.

In practice, postvelar is often described as a dorsal articulation that is not clearly velar but also not definitively uvular. Because the IPA does not designate a separate postvelar category, transcriptions usually rely on velar or uvular symbols with descriptive labels or diacritics indicating retraction, advancement, or pharyngealization, depending on the language-specific analysis. Some researchers treat postvelars as a distinct set of sounds, while others reanalyze them as velars with posterior retraction or as uvulars.

The term tends to be encountered more in theoretical discussions of dorsal consonants and in descriptions of languages with articulations that do not fit neatly into the standard velar or uvular classifications. As such, postvelar remains a descriptively useful but somewhat debated label within phonetic literature.