The voiced labial–velar nasal is a type of

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 ...

al sound, used in some spoken

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

s. The symbol 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 ...

that represents this sound is . The labial–velar nasal is found in West and Central Africa and eastern New Guinea, as well as in certain contexts in Vietnamese.

Features

Features of the voiced labial–velar nasal:

Occurrence

Labialized variant

Some languages, especially in

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, combine this labial–velar nasal with a labial–velar approximant release, hence . In the

Banks Islands The Banks Islands (in Bislama ''Bankis'') are a group of islands in northern Vanuatu. Together with the Torres Islands to their northwest, they make up the northernmost province of Torba. The island group lies about north of Maewo, and inclu ...

languages which have it, the phoneme is written in local

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, using a macron on the corresponding bilabial. In other languages of

further south (such as South Efate, or

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), the same segment is spelled with a combining

tilde The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) i ...

Notes

References

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External links