The velopharyngeal fricatives, also known as the posterior nasal fricatives, are a family of sounds produced by some children with speech disorders, including some with a cleft palate, as a substitute for sibilants (in English, /s, z, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ, tr, dr/), which cannot be produced with a cleft palate.

It results from "the approximation but inadequate closure of the upper border of the velum and the posterior pharyngeal wall.

"[1] To produce a velopharyngeal fricative, the soft palate approaches the pharyngeal wall and narrows the velopharyngeal port, such that the restricted port creates fricative turbulence in air forced through it into the nasal cavity.

The articulation may be aided by a posterior positioning of the tongue and may involve velar flutter (a snorting sound).

"[4] The base symbol for a velopharyngeal fricative in the extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for disordered speech is ⟨ʩ⟩, and secondary articulation is indicated with a double tilde, ⟨◌͌⟩.