The voiced alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...

that represents dental,

alveolar Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit. Uses in anatomy and zoology * Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs ** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte ** Alveolar duct ** Alveolar macrophage * ...

, and

postalveolar Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but no ...

nasals is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is n. The vast majority of languages have either an alveolar or dental nasal. There are a few languages that lack either sound but have , such as

Yoruba The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...

, Palauan, and colloquial Samoan (however, these languages all have . An example of a language without and is

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

). There are some languages (e.g.

Rotokas Rotokas is a North Bougainville language spoken by about 4,320 people on the island of Bougainville, an island located to the east of New Guinea which is part of Papua New Guinea. According to Allen and Hurd (1963), there are three identifie ...

) that lack both and . True dental consonants are relatively uncommon. In the Romance, Dravidian, and Australian languages, ''n'' is often called "dental" in the literature. However, the rearmost contact, which gives a consonant its distinctive sound, is actually alveolar or denti-alveolar. The difference between the Romance languages and English is not so much where the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth but the part of the tongue that makes contact. In English, it is the tip of the tongue (such sounds are termed apical), but in the Romance languages, it is the flat of the tongue just above the tip (such sounds are called

laminal A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...

). However, there are languages with true apical (or less commonly laminal) dental ''n''. It is found in the Mapuche language of South America, where it is actually interdental. A true dental generally occurs allophonically before in the languages that have it, as in English ''tenth''. Similarly, a denti-alveolar allophone occurs in languages that have denti-alveolar stops, as in Spanish ''cinta''. Some languages contrast laminal denti-alveolar and apical alveolar nasals. For example, in the Malayalam pronunciation of ''Nārāyanan'', the first ''n'' is dental, the second is retroflex, and the third alveolar. A postalveolar nasal occurs in a number of

Australian Aboriginal languages The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...

, including Djeebbana and Jingulu.

Features

Features of the voiced alveolar nasal: * There are four specific variants of : ** Dental, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the upper teeth, termed respectively '' apical'' and ''

''. ** Denti-alveolar, which means it is articulated with the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, and the tip of the tongue behind upper teeth. **

Alveolar Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit. Uses in anatomy and zoology * Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs ** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte ** Alveolar duct ** Alveolar macrophage * ...

, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the alveolar ridge, termed respectively ''apical'' and ''laminal''. **

Postalveolar Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but no ...

, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, termed respectively ''apical'' and ''laminal''.

Occurrence

Dental or denti-alveolar

Alveolar

Postalveolar

Variable

Notes

References

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

* {{IPA navigation Alveolar consonants Dental consonants Postalveolar consonants Nasal consonants Pulmonic consonants Voiced consonants