Palatal consonant

Palatals are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). Consonants with the tip of the tongue curled back against the palate are called retroflex. Palatal sounds are occasionally called domal or cacuminal (/kəˈkjuːmɪnəl/ ^ⓘ), though usually those terms are restricted to retroflex consonants (apico-domal or apico-palatal), with 'palatal' restricted to laminal consonants (lamino-domal or lamino-palatal).

The term 'palatal' is commonly used more loosely for laminal or palatalized post-alveolar sounds, if there are no true palatals that contrast with them. This is especially the case with the IPA letters ⟨ɲ⟩ and ⟨ʎ⟩, which would often be more accurately transcribed as ⟨n̠ʲ⟩ and ⟨l̠ʲ⟩.