the tongue, the consonant is said to be central. If, however, it is deflected off to one side, escaping between the side of the tongue and the side teeth, it is said to be lateral. Nonetheless, for simplicity's sake the place of articulation is assumed to be the point along the length of the tongue, and the consonant may in addition be said to be central or lateral. That is, a consonant may be lateral alveolar, like English (the tongue contacts the alveolar ridge, but allows air to flow off to the side), or lateral palatal, like Castilian Spanish ll . Some Indigenous Australian languages contrast dental, alveolar, retroflex, and palatal laterals, and many Native American languages have lateral fricatives and affricates as well. Coarticulation Some languages have consonants with two simultaneous places of articulation, which is called coarticulation. When these are doubly articulated, the articulators must be independently movable, and therefore there may be only one each from the major categories labial, coronal, dorsal and pharyngeal. The only common doubly articulated consonants are labial–velar stops like , and less commonly , which are found throughout Western Africa and Central Africa. Other combinations are rare but include labial–(post)alveolar stops , found as distinct consonants only in a single language in New Guinea, and a uvular–epiglottal stop, , found in Somali. More commonly, coarticulation involves secondary articulation of an approximantic nature. Then, both articulations can be similar such as labialized labial or palatalized velar . That is the case of English , which is a velar consonant with secondary labial articulation. Common coarticulations include these: Labialization, rounding the lips while producing the obstruction, as in and English . Palatalization, raising the body of the tongue toward the hard palate while producing the obstruction, as in Russian and . Velarization, raising the back of the tongue toward the soft palate (velum), as in the English dark el, (also transcribed ). Pharyngealization, constriction of the throat (pharynx), such as Arabic "emphatic" . See also Articulatory phonetics Manner of articulation Relative articulation Tongue shape Sibilant Index of phonetics articles Notes References External links Interactive places and manners of articulation Phonetics Articles containing video clips