Velarization

Velarization or velarisation is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four diacritics:

A tilde or swung dash through the letter covers velarization, uvularization and pharyngealization, as in
A superscript Latin gamma after the letter standing for the velarized consonant, as in
To distinguish velarization from a velar fricative release, may be used instead of
A superscript indicates either simultaneous velarization and labialization, as in or, or labialization of a velar consonant, as in.

Although electropalatographic studies have shown that there is a continuum of possible degrees of velarization, the IPA does not specify any way to indicate degrees of velarization, as the difference has not been found to be contrastive in any language. However, the IPA convention of doubling diacritics to indicate a greater degree can be used:.

Examples

English

A common example of a velarized consonant is the velarized alveolar lateral approximant. In some accents of English, such as Received Pronunciation and arguably General American English, the phoneme has "dark" and "light" allophones: the "dark", velarized allophone appears in syllable coda position, while the "light", non-velarized allophone appears in syllable onset position. Other accents of English, such as Scottish English, Australian English, and potentially standard U.S. and Canadian accents, have "dark L" in all positions.

Velarized /l/

Albanian phonemically contrasts light l and dark ll
Catalan dialect and allophonic variance
Portuguese dialect and allophonic variance
Turkish
Kurdish

For many languages, velarization is generally associated with more dental articulations of coronal consonants so that dark l tends to be dental or dentoalveolar, and clear l tends to be retracted to an alveolar position.

Other velarized consonants

Danish realizes in some environments as a velarized.
Irish and Marshallese have velarized consonants that systematically contrast with palatalized consonants.
Similarly, Russian has velarized consonants as allophones of the non-palatalized series, especially prominent before front vowels and with labial and velar consonants as well as the lateral.
Scottish Gaelic has a three-way contrast in nasals and laterals between and
Kurdish has three velarized consonants which contrast with plain ones.
Gilbertese has three velarized consonants, two of which contrast with a plain form.

The palatalized/velarized contrast is known by other names, especially in language pedagogy: in Irish and Scottish Gaelic language teaching, the terms slender and broad are often used. In Scottish Gaelic the terms are caol and leathann.
The terms light or clear and dark are also widespread. The terms "soft l " and "hard l " are not equivalent to "light l " and "dark l ". The former pair refers to palatalized and plain Slavic consonants.