Velar nasal

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Velar nasal

The velar nasal is a type of consonant

Consonant

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper vocal tract, the upper vocal tract being defined as that part of the vocal tract that lies above the larynx....
al sound, used in some spoken language

Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
s. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet

International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic....
that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA

X-SAMPA

The Extended Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet is a variant of SAMPA developed in 1995 by John C. Wells, professor of phonetics at the University of London....
symbol is N.

As a phoneme

Phoneme

In human language, a phoneme is the smallest posited linguistically distinctive unit of sound. Phonemes carry no semantic content themselves. In theoretical terms, phonemes are not the physical segment s themselves, but cognitive abstractions or categorizations of them....
, the velar nasal does not occur in many of the indigenous languages of the Americas, nor in a large number of European or Middle Eastern languages. While almost all languages have and , only about half have a velar nasal.

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Encyclopedia

The velar nasal is a type of consonant

Consonant

Language

International Phonetic Alphabet

X-SAMPA

Phoneme

Voiced velar plosive

The voiced velar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is g....
, the relative rarity of the velar nasal is undoubtedly due to the fact that the small oral cavity used to produce 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 Soft palate)....
s makes it more difficult for voicing to be sustained. It also makes it much more difficult to allow air to escape through the nose as is required for a nasal consonant.

In many languages that do not have the velar nasal as a phoneme, it occurs as an allophone of before velar consonants.

Features

Features of the velar nasal:

Its manner of articulation
Manner of articulation

In linguistics , manner of articulation describes how the tongue, lips, jaw, and other speech organs are involved in making a sound make contact....
is stop
Stop consonant

A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms....
, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
Its place of articulation
Place of articulation

In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation of a consonant is the point of contact, where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an active articulator and a passive articulator ....
is velar
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 Soft palate)....
which means it is articulated with the back part of the tongue
Tongue

The tongue is skeletal muscle on the floor of the mouth that manipulates food for chewing . It is the primary organ of taste. Much of the upper surface of the tongue is covered in papillae and taste buds....
(the dorsum) against the soft palate
Soft palate

The soft palate is the soft biological_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....
(the velum).
Its phonation
Phonation

Phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, phonation is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration....
type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
It is a nasal consonant
Nasal consonant

A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered soft palate in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the tongue....
, which means air is allowed to escape through the nose.
It is a central consonant
Central consonant

A central or medial consonant is a consonant sound that is produced when air flows across the center of the mouth over the tongue.Examples of central consonants are the voiceless velar plosive , the voiced alveolar fricative and the alveolar nasal ....
, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
The airstream mechanism
Airstream mechanism

In phonetics, the airstream mechanism is the method by which airflow is created in the vocal tract. Along with phonation, it is one of two mandatory aspects of sound production; without these, there can be no speech sound....
is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lung
Lung

The lung is the essential respiration organ in air-breathing animals, including most tetrapods, a few fish and a few snails. In mammals and the more complex life forms, the two lungs are located in the chest on either side of the heart....
s and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis
Glottis

The glottis defined as the combination of the vocal folds and the space in between the folds ....
or the mouth.

The IPA symbol is a lowercase letter n with a leftward tail protruding from the bottom of the right stem of the letter. Compare and . Both the symbol and the sound are commonly called as "eng" or "engma" and sometimes in reference to Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
, "angma". The symbol should not be confused with , the symbol for the retroflex nasal

Retroflex nasal

The retroflex nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is n`....
, which has a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem or with , the symbol for the palatal nasal

Palatal nasal

The palatal nasal is a type of consonant, used in some Speech communication languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J....
, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the left stem.

Varieties of [?]

IPA	Description
	plain ?
	voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, the term voiceless describes the pronunciation of sounds when the larynx does not vibrate. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation.... ?
	syllabic Syllabic consonant A syllabic consonant is a consonant which either forms a syllable on its own, or is the nucleus of a syllable. The diacritic for this in the International Phonetic Alphabet is the under-stroke, , at Unicode code point U+329.... ?
	breathy voice Breathy voice Breathy voice is a phonation in which the vocal cords vibrate, as they do in normal voicing, but are held further apart, so that a larger volume of air escapes between them.... d ?
	creaky voice Creaky voice In linguistics, creaky voice , is a special kind of phonation in which the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together; as a result, the vocal folds are compressed rather tightly, becoming relatively slack and compact.... d ?
	labialized ?

Occurrence

Language		Word	Meaning	Notes
Aleut Aleut language Aleut is a language of the Eskimo-Aleut language family. It is the tongue of the Aleut people living in the Aleutian Islands, Pribilof Islands, and Commander Islands....			'five'
Bai	Dali Dali, Yunnan Dali City is a county-level city in Dali Prefecture, Yunnan province, People's Republic of China.... dialect	?	'fish'
Chinese Chinese language Chinese or the Sinitic language is a language family consisting of language mutually unintelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the two branches of Sino-Tibetan languages of languages....	Cantonese	/	'raise'	See Standard Cantonese Standard Cantonese Standard Cantonese, or Guangzhou dialect, is the prestige dialect of Cantonese language. It is used in Hong Kong and Macau as the spoken language of government and instruction in the schools....
	Mandarin	/	'Beijing Beijing is a metropolis in northern China and the Capital of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the four municipality of China, which are equivalent to province in China's Political divisions of China.... '	See Standard Mandarin Standard Mandarin Standard Mandarin, or Standard Chinese, is the official modern Spoken Chinese used in People's Republic of China and Republic of China, and is one of the four official languages of Languages of Singapore....
Catalan Catalan language Catalan is a Romance languages, the national language and official language of Andorra, and a official language in the Autonomous Communities of Spain of the Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencian Community and in the city of Alghero in the Italy List of islands in the Mediterranean of Sardinia....			'blood'	See Catalan phonology
Chukchi Chukchi language The Chukchi language also known as Luoravetlan, Chukot and Chukcha is a Palaeosiberian languages spoken by Chukchi people in the easternmost extremity of Siberia, mainly in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug....		?????Cyrillic alphabet The Cyrillic alphabet is a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by five Slavic languages national languages as well as non-Slavic . It is also used by many other languages of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Siberia and other languages in the past....	'two'
Czech Czech language Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czech people worldwide....			'tank'	See Czech phonology Czech phonology For assistance in making phonetic transcriptions of Czech for Wikipedia articles, see WP:IPA for CzechThis article discusses the phonology system of the Czech language...
Dinka Dinka language This article is for the language, for the ethnic group see Dinka.The Dinka language, or as it is known in the language itself, is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken by the Dinka, one of the largest and most powerful ethnic groups in Southern Sudan....			'who'
Dutch Dutch language Dutch is a West Germanic languages spoken by over 22 million people as a first language, and about 5 million people as a second language."1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language speakers of Dutch is very small. Most native...			'fear'	See Dutch phonology Dutch phonology Dutch is a Germanic language and as such has a similar phonology to other Germanic languages . The Dutch as spoken in Haarlem is popularly said to be closest to northern ?Standard? Dutch, not the Amsterdam dialect....
English English language English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...			'sing'	Restricted to the syllable coda Syllable coda In phonology, a syllable coda comprises the consonant sounds of a syllable that follow the syllable nucleus, which is usually a vowel. The combination of a nucleus and a coda is called a syllable rime.... . See English phonology English phonology English phonology is the study of the phonology of the English language. Like all languages, spoken English has wide variation in its pronunciation both Historical linguistics and Descriptive linguistics from dialect to dialect....
Fijian Fijian language Fijian is an Austronesian languages language of the Malayo-Polynesian languages spoken in Fiji. It has 350,000 first-language speakers, which is less than half the population of Fiji, but another 200,000 speak it as a second language....			'child'
Filipino Filipino language The Filipino language is the national language and an official language of the Philippines as designated in the 1987 Philippine Constitution. It is an Austronesian language that is the de facto standard language of Tagalog language....			'now, today'
Finnish Finnish language Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by Finnish people outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden....			'of the thread'	See Finnish phonology Finnish phonology This article deals with the sound patterns of the Finnish language. The Finnish grammar and the way in which Spoken Finnish are dealt with in separate articles....
French French language French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....			'parking lot'	See French phonology French phonology For assistance in making IPA transcriptions of French for Wikipedia articles, see WP:IPA for FrenchThis article mainly discusses the phonology system of standard language French language based on the Metropolitan French....
Galician Galician language Galician is a language of the Iberian Romance languages branch, spoken in Galicia , an Autonomous communities of Spain located in northwestern Spain, as well as in small bordering zones in the neighbouring autonomous communities of Asturias and Castile and Le?n and in Northern Portugal....			'one', 'a' (feminine)
German German language German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....			'long'	See German phonology German phonology This article is about the phonology of the German language based on the Standard German. It deals with current phonology and phonetics as well as with historical developments thereof, including geographical variants ....
Greek Greek language Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....			'I fail (to fail)'	See Modern Greek phonology Modern Greek phonology This page presents a sketch of the phonology of Standard Modern Greek....
Hebrew			'bank'	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 Soft palate).... s. See Hebrew phonology Hebrew phonology This article is about the phonology of the Hebrew language based on the Israeli Hebrew. It deals with current phonology and phonetics as well as with historical developments thereof, including geographical variants....
Hindi Hindi Standard Hindi, also known as High Hindi, Nagari Hindi or Literary Hindi is a Standard language register of Hindi. It is one of the 22 official languages of India, and is used, along with English language, for administration of the central government....			'color'	See Hindi-Urdu phonology Hindi-Urdu phonology Modern Standard Hindi is the official language of India, while Urdu is the national language of Pakistan as well as a Official languages of India in India....
Hungarian Hungarian language Hungarian is a Uralic languages unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is mainly spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in the seven neighbouring countries....			'shirt'	See Hungarian phonology Hungarian phonology This article is about the phonology of the Hungarian language. It deals with current phonology and phonetics. Hungarian is notable for its process of vowel harmony....
Icelandic Icelandic language Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....			'tunnel'	See Icelandic phonology Icelandic phonology Icelandic phonology is the study of the phonology of the Icelandic language. Unlike many languages, Icelandic has only very minor dialectal differences in sounds, due to the relatively small number of speakers and the concentration of these speakers in mostly one area....
Indonesian Indonesian language Indonesian is the official national language of Indonesia. It is based on a version of Malay language from the Riau islands in western Indonesia, today called Riau Indonesian....			'wake up'
Inuktitut		????Inuktitut Inuktitut is the name of the varieties of Inuit language spoken in Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, to some extent in northeastern Manitoba as well as the territories of Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and traditionally on the Arctic Ocean coa... /puunnguuq	'dog' for shaman's word
Inuvialuktun Inuvialuktun Inuvialuktun is a word routinely used to describe the varieties of the Inuit language spoken in the northern Northwest Territories by those Canada Inuit who call themselves Inuvialuit....		qamnguiyuaqLatin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....	'snores'
Irish Irish language Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic languages of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people....			'a scabbed one'	See Irish phonology Irish phonology File:Gaeltachtai le hainmneacha.svgThe phonology of the Irish language varies from Irish language#Dialects; there is no standard language of the language....
Italian Italian language Italian is a Romance languages spoken by about 63 million people as a first language, primarily in Italy. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four Linguistic geography of Switzerlands....			'also'	See Italian phonology Italian phonology This article is about the phonology of the Italian language. It deals with the phonology and phonetics of Standard Italian as well as with geographical variants....
Itelmen Itelmen language Itelmen, formerly also known as Kamchadal, is a language belonging to the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages traditionally spoken in the Kamchatka Peninsula....			'one'
Japanese Japanese language IPA: [n?iho?go] is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Ryukyuan languages....	Standard	/	'the South Pole'	See Japanese phonology Japanese phonology This article deals with the phonology of the Japanese language....
	Eastern dialects Japanese dialects comprise many regional variants. The lingua franca of Japan is called hyojungo or kyotsugo , and while it was based initially on the Tokyo dialect, the language of Japan's capital has since gone in its own direction to become one of Japan's many dialects....	/	'key'
Ket Ket language The Ket language, formerly known as Yenisei Ostyak, a Siberian language long thought to be an language isolate, the sole surviving language of a Yeniseian languages, is spoken along the middle Yenisei Basin by the Ket people....			'to damn'
Korean Korean language Korean is the official language of North Korea and South Korea. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China....		/	'room'	See Korean phonology Korean phonology This article is a technical description of the phonetics and phonology of Korean language.Korean has many allophones, so it is important here to distinguish morphophonemics from corresponding phonemes and allophones ....
Macedonian Macedonian language Macedonian is the official language of the Republic of Macedonia and is a part of the Eastern group of South Slavic languages. Macedonian is closely related to and shares a high degree of mutual intelligibility with the Bulgarian language, Serbian language, Bosnian language, and Croatian language languages....			'English'	Macedonian phonology Macedonian phonology This article discusses the phonology system of standard language Macedonian language based on the Prilep-Bitola dialect dialect. For discussion of other dialects, see Dialects of the Macedonian language....
Nivkh Nivkh language Nivkh or Gilyak is a language spoken in Outer Manchuria, in the basin of the Amgun River , along the lower reaches of the Amur itself, and on the northern half of Sakhalin....		???? Cyrillic alphabet The Cyrillic alphabet is a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by five Slavic languages national languages as well as non-Slavic . It is also used by many other languages of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Siberia and other languages in the past....	'seven'
Norwegian Norwegian language Norwegian is a North Germanic languages language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. It is also spoken as a second language among Norwegian-Americans in the United States of America, especially in the central northern states....			'hallway'	See Norwegian phonology Norwegian phonology The sound system of Norwegian language is similar to that of Swedish language. There is considerable variation among the dialects, but the variant generally taught to foreign students is Standard ?stnorsk ....
Polish Polish language Polish , an official language of Poland, has the largest number of speakers of any West Slavic languages. Polish-speakers use the language in a uniform manner through most of Poland, and it has a regular orthography....			'bank'	See Polish phonology Polish phonology Vowels The Polish language vowel system is relatively simple with only six oral and two nasal vowels. All Polish oral vowels are monophthongs, which are shown to the right....
Occitan Occitan language Occitan , known also as Lenga d'?c or Langue d'oc is a Romance languages spoken in Occitania, that is, Southern France, the Occitan Valleys of Italy, Monaco and in the Aran Valley of Spain....	Provençal Provençal language Proven?al is one of several dialects of Occitan spoken by a minority of people in southern France, mostly in Provence. In the English language-speaking world, "Proven?al" is often used to refer to all dialects of Occitan, but it actually refers specifically to the dialect spoken in Provence, as well as in the southern portion of the Dauphin?...		'wine'
Rapanui Rapa Nui language The Rapa Nui language is an Eastern Polynesian languages spoken by the Rapanui, the inhabitants of Easter Island....			'bay'	Sometimes transcribed as
Russian Russian language Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....			'function'	Russian phonology Russian phonology For assistance in making phonetic transcriptions of Russian for Wikipedia articles, see WP:IPA for RussianThis article discusses the phonology system of standard language Russian language based on the Moscow dialect ....
Seri Seri language Seri is a language isolate spoken by the Seri in two villages on the coast of Sonora, Mexico....			'Seri people'
Shona Shona language Shona is a Bantu languages, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language dialects, namely Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore....			'witch-doctor'
Slovene			'tank'
Spanish Spanish language Spanish or Castilian is a Romance languages that originated in northern Spain, and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile and evolved into the principal language of government and trade....			'Sunday'	See Spanish phonology Spanish phonology This article is about the phonology of the Spanish language. It deals with current phonology and phonetics as well as with historical developments thereof, including geographical variants ....
Swahili Swahili language Swahili is the first language of the Swahili people , who inhabit several large stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, including the Comoros Islands....			'cow'
Swedish Swedish language Swedish is a North Germanic languages language, spoken by around 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the ?land islands....			'bank'	See Swedish phonology Swedish phonology The phonology of Swedish language is notable for having a large vowel inventory, with 9 vowels that are distinguished in quality and to some degree quantity, making up 17 vowel phonemes in most dialects ....
Thai Thai language Thai , is the national language and official language language of Thailand and the mother tongue of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group....			'work/job'
Vietnamese Vietnamese language Vietnamese , formerly known under French colonization as Annamese , is the national language and official language language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of the Vietnamese people , who constitute 86% of Demographics of Vietnam, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese, most of whom live in the United States....			'to accept'	See Vietnamese phonology Vietnamese phonology This article is a technical description the sound system of the Vietnamese language, including phonetics and phonology....
Yup'ik Yupik language The Yupik languages are the several distinct languages of the several Yupik peoples of western and southcentral Alaska and northeastern Siberia....			'animal'

Velar nasal

Features

Varieties of [?]

Occurrence

See also

Bibliography