PALATAL

in phonetics, a consonant sound produced by raising the blade, or front, of the tongue toward or against the hard palate just behind the alveolar ridge (the gums). The German ch sound in ich and the French gn (pronounced ny) in agneau are palatal consonants. English has no purely palatal consonants, except for the y sound (a semivowel) in you. (The sh sound in ship and the zh sound represented as z in azure are usually classified as palato-alveolar sounds.)