1. Consonant sounds articulated with the tongue body raised toward the hard palate and the back of the tongue toward the soft palate; a class of sounds in historical and comparative linguistics.
Usage: linguistics; plural form; technical term used in phonetics and historical language study

Examples

• Palatovelars were an important feature in Proto-Indo-European phonology.
• Linguists debate whether palatovelars existed as a distinct class in ancient languages.
• The distinction between velars and palatovelars helps explain sound changes across language families.
• Historical phonologists use the term palatovelars to describe certain consonant articulations.
• Evidence for palatovelars comes from comparative analysis of related languages.