In
phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the
velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is .
In the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...
, nasalization is indicated by printing a
tilde diacritic above the symbol for the sound to be nasalized: is the nasalized equivalent of , and is the nasalized equivalent of . A subscript diacritic , called an
ogonek or ''nosinė'', is sometimes seen, especially when the vowel bears
tone marks that would interfere with the superscript tilde. For example, are more legible in most fonts than .
Nasal vowels
Many languages have nasal
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s to different degrees, but only a minority of world languages around the world have nasal vowels as contrasting phonemes. That is the case, among others, of
French,
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
,
Hindustani,
Nepali,
Breton,
Gheg Albanian,
Hmong
Hmong may refer to:
* Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand
* Hmong cuisine
* Hmong customs and culture
** Hmong music
** Hmong textile art
* Hmong language, a continuum of closely related to ...
,
Hokkien,
Yoruba, and
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...
. Those nasal vowels contrast with their corresponding
oral vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced witho ...
s. Nasality is usually seen as a binary feature, although surface variation in different degrees of nasality caused by neighboring
nasal consonant
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast major ...
s has been observed.
Degree of nasality
There are occasional languages, such as in
Palantla Chinantec
Palantla Chinantec, also known as ''Chinanteco de San Pedro Tlatepuzco'', is a major Chinantecan language of Mexico, spoken in San Juan Palantla and a couple dozen neighboring towns in northern Oaxaca. The variety of San Mateo Yetla, known as ...
, where vowels seem to exhibit three contrastive degrees of nasality: oral e.g. vs lightly nasalized vs heavily nasalized , although Ladefoged and Maddieson believe that the lightly nasalized vowels are best described as oro-nasal
diphthongs. Note that Ladefoged and Maddieson's transcription of heavy nasalization with a double tilde might be confused with the
extIPA adoption of that diacritic for
velopharyngeal frication
A velopharyngeal fricative, also known as a posterior nasal fricative, is a sound produced by some children with speech disorders, including some with a cleft palate, as a substitute for sibilants (), which cannot be produced with a cleft pala ...
.
Nasal consonants
By far the most common nasal sounds are
nasal consonant
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast major ...
s such as , or . Most nasal consonants are occlusives, and airflow through the mouth is blocked and redirected through the nose. Their oral counterparts are the
stops.
Nasalized consonants
Nasalized versions of other consonant sounds also exist but are much rarer than either nasal occlusives or nasal vowels. The
Middle Chinese consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...
日 (; in modern
Standard Chinese) has an odd history; for example, it has evolved into and (or and respectively, depending on accents) in
Standard Chinese; / and in
Hokkien; / and / while borrowed into Japan. It seems likely that it was once a nasalized fricative, perhaps a palatal .
In
Coatzospan Mixtec
Coatzospan Mixtec (Coatzóspam Mixtec) is a Mixtec language of Oaxaca spoken in the town of San Juan Coatzospan.
Phonology
Consonants in parentheses are marginal.
In women's speech, is realized as before front vowels.
Vowel qualities ar ...
, fricatives and affricates are nasalized before nasal vowels even when they are voiceless. In the
Hupa, the
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...
often has the tongue not make full contact, resulting in a nasalized approximant, . That is
cognate with a
nasalized palatal approximant in other
Athabaskan languages.
In
Umbundu
Umbundu, or South Mbundu (autonym umb, úmbúndú), one of many Bantu languages, is the most widely-spoken autochthonous language of Angola. Its speakers are known as ''Ovimbundu'' and are an ethnic group constituting a third of Angola's popula ...
, phonemic contrasts with the (
allophonically) nasalized approximant and so is likely to be a true fricative rather than an approximant. In
Old and
Middle Irish, the
lenited was a nasalized bilabial fricative.
Sundanese has an allophonic nasalized
glottal stop ; nasalized stops can occur only with pharyngeal articulation or lower, or they would be simple nasals. Nasal
flaps are common allophonically. Many West African languages have a nasal flap (or ) as an allophone of before a nasal vowel;
Pashto
Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani ().
Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...
, however, has a phonemic nasal
retroflex lateral flap
The voiced retroflex lateral flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The expected symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is ().Kirk Miller & Michael AshbyL2/20-252RUnicode request for IPA modifier-letters (a), ...
.
Other languages, such as the
Khoisan languages
The Khoisan languages (; also Khoesan or Khoesaan) are a group of African languages originally classified together by Joseph Greenberg. Khoisan languages share click consonants and do not belong to other African language families. For much of ...
of
Khoekhoe
Khoekhoen (singular Khoekhoe) (or Khoikhoi in the former orthography; formerly also '' Hottentots''"Hottentot, n. and adj." ''OED Online'', Oxford University Press, March 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/88829. Accessed 13 May 2018. Citing G. S. ...
and
Gǀui, as well as several of the
!Kung languages, include
nasal click
Nasal clicks are click consonants pronounced with nasal airflow. All click types ( alveolar , dental , lateral , palatal , retroflex , and labial ) have nasal variants, and these are attested in four or five phonations: voiced, voiceless, a ...
consonants. Nasal clicks are typically with a nasal or superscript nasal preceding the consonant (for example, velar-palatal or and uvular-palatal or ). Nasalized laterals such as are easy to produce but rare or nonexistent as phonemes; allophonically, they may appear in some
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
words like ''enlatar'' or ''enlamear''. Often when is nasalized, it becomes .
True nasal fricatives
Besides nasalized oral fricatives, there are true nasal fricatives, or ''anterior nasal fricatives'', previously called ''nareal fricatives''. They are sometimes produced by people with
disordered speech
Speech disorders or speech impairments are a type of communication disorder in which normal speech is disrupted. This can mean stuttering, lisps, etc. Someone who is unable to speak due to a speech disorder is considered mute. Speech skills are ...
. The
turbulence in the airflow characteristic of
fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
s is produced not in the mouth but at the
anterior nasal port, the narrowest part of the
nasal cavity. (Turbulence can also be produced at the posterior nasal port, or velopharyngeal port, when that port is narrowed – see
velopharyngeal fricative. With anterior nasal fricatives, the velopharyngeal port is open.) A superimposed homothetic sign that resembles a
colon divided by a tilde is used for this in the
extensions to the IPA: is a voiced alveolar nasal fricative, with no airflow out of the mouth, and is the voiceless equivalent; is an oral fricative with simultaneous nasal frication. No known language makes use of nasal fricatives in non-disordered speech.
Denasalization
Nasalization may be lost over time. There are also
denasal sounds, which sound like nasals spoken with a head cold. They may be found in non-pathological speech as a language loses nasal consonants, as in
Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
.
Contextual nasalization
Vowels assimilate to surrounding
nasal consonant
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast major ...
s in many languages, such as
Thai, creating nasal vowel allophones. Some languages exhibit a nasalization of
segments adjacent to phonemic or allophonic
nasal vowels, such as
Apurinã.
Contextual nasalization can lead to the addition of nasal vowel phonemes to a language.
[The World Atlas of Language Structures Online �]
Chapter 10 – Vowel Nasalization
/ref> That happened in French, most of whose final consonants disappeared, but its final nasals made the preceding vowels become nasal, which introduced a new distinction into the language. An example is ''vin blanc'' ('white wine'), ultimately from Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''vinum'' and ''blancum''.
See also
* Eclipsis, a similar process in Gaelic that is often called "nasalization"
*Nasal consonant
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast major ...
*Nasal release
In phonetics, a nasal release is the release of a stop consonant into a nasal. Such sounds are transcribed in the IPA with superscript nasal letters, for example as in English ''catnip'' . In English words such as ''sudden'' in which historically ...
* Nasal vowel
* Nasality
*Prenasalized consonant
Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant such as ) that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather ...
References
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Phonetics
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