Dorsal consonants are articulated with the mid body of the tongue

Tongue

The tongue is a muscular hydrostat on the floors of the mouths of most vertebrates which manipulates food for mastication. It is the primary organ of taste , as much of the upper surface of the tongue is covered in papillae and taste buds. It is sensitive and kept moist by saliva, and is richly...

 (the dorsum). They contrast with coronal consonant

Coronal consonant

Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such...

s articulated with the flexible front of the tongue, and radical consonant

Radical consonant

Radical consonants are those consonants articulated with the root of the tongue in the throat. This includes the pharyngeal, epiglottal, and epiglotto-pharyngeal places of articulation, though technically epiglottal consonants take place in the larynx....

s articulated with the root of the tongue.

Function

The dorsum of the tongue can contact a broad region of the roof of the mouth, from the hard palate

Hard palate

The hard palate is a thin horizontal bony plate of the skull, located in the roof of the mouth. It spans the arch formed by the upper teeth.It is formed by the palatine process of the maxilla and horizontal plate of palatine bone....

 (so-called palatal consonant

Palatal consonant

Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...

s), the flexible velum

Soft palate

The soft palate is the soft tissue constituting the back of the roof of the mouth. The soft palate is distinguished from the hard palate at the front of the mouth in that it does not contain bone....

 behind that (velar consonant

Velar consonant

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....

s), to the uvula at the back of the mouth cavity (uvular consonant

Uvular consonant

Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...

s). These distinctions are not clear cut, and sometimes finer gradations such as pre-palatal, pre-velar, and post-velar will be noted.

Because the tip of the tongue can curl back to also contact the hard palate for retroflex consonant

Retroflex consonant

A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...

s, consonants produced by contact between the dorsum and the palate are sometimes called dorso-palatal.

In different languages

The most common pronunciation of the English letter G (as in the garden or to grab) is dorsal, a voiced velar plosive

Voiced velar plosive

The voiced velar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is g. Strictly, the IPA symbol is the so-called "opentail G" , though the "looptail G" is...

.

The pronunciation of the letters K, Q, and sometimes C (as in the cake or to crawl) is similarly dorsal, a voiceless velar plosive

Voiceless velar plosive

The voiceless velar stop or voiceless velar plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is k....

.

Two English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 approximant

Approximant consonant

Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...

s, Y as in yellow and W as in white, are also dorsal consonants, palatal and labialised

Labialisation

Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve the lips, they are called rounded.The most common...

 velar respectively.

The German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 CH sound, found in Scottish English

Scottish English

Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not be considered distinct from the Scots language. It is always considered distinct from Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language....

 loch, is a dorsal fricative

Fricative consonant

Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...

.