Depalatalise

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To remove or alter a palatal consonant sound so that it is pronounced with the tongue away from the hard palate, typically changing it to a more neutral or non-palatal articulation
2. The process of shifting a speech sound originally produced with the tongue against the hard palate to a different place of articulation, effectively reducing or eliminating the palatal quality
3. A phonetic change involving the modification or loss of the palatal feature in a consonant, resulting in pronunciation that no longer involves contact or approximation to the palate

Etymology: "Depalatalise" is a plain technical formation: the prefix "de-", meaning "reversal" or "removal", attached to "palatalise". The verb "palatalise" describes a sound that is produced or shifted toward the hard palate, the roof of the mouth, and "depalatalise" names the opposite process, in which a sound that had been palatalised loses that articulation. The base word "palatalise" itself comes from "palatal", which relates to the palate, the roof of the mouth, and the suffix "-ise" that turns it into a verb meaning to make or become something. Adding "de-" to such a verb produces a word that describes undoing the change. Linguists use the pair together when describing how sounds have shifted over time in a language's history.

Synonyms: depalletize, depalatalize

Antonyms: palatalise, palatalize