A voiced palatal nasal is a type of consonant used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase letter n with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bottom of the left stem of the letter. The letter is visually similar to , the symbol for the retroflex nasal, which has a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem, and to , the symbol for the velar nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem.

The IPA symbol derives from and , for nasality and denoting palatalization. In Spanish and languages whose writing systems are influenced by Spanish orthography, it is represented by the letter , called eñe (). In French and Italian orthographies the sound is represented by the digraph . Occitan uses the digraph , the source of the same Portuguese digraph called ene-agá (), used thereafter by languages whose writing systems are influenced by Portuguese orthography, such as Vietnamese. In Catalan, Hungarian, Aragonese and many African languages, as Swahili or Dinka, the digraph is used. In Albanian and Serbo-Croatian, the digraph (Nj) is used, and sometimes, for the languages with the Cyrillic script that used to be part of Yugoslavia, uses the (Њњ) Cyrillic ligature that might be part of the official alphabet. In Czech and Slovak, is represented by letter whilst Kashubian and Polish use . Latvian and Livonian use . In Bengali it is represented by the letter .

What is transcribed is often actually a voiced alveolo-palatal nasal. There is no dedicated symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound, which is one reason that is used. If more precision is desired, it may be transcribed . There is a non-IPA letter, (i.e. , plus the curl found in the symbols for alveolo-palatal sibilant fricatives ), which is used especially in Sinological circles.

An alveolo-palatal nasal is commonly described as palatal; it is often unclear whether a language has a true palatal or not. Many languages claimed to have a palatal nasal, such as Portuguese, actually have an alveolo-palatal nasal. This is likely true of several of the languages listed here. Some dialects of Irish as well as some non-standard dialects of Malayalam are reported to contrast alveolo-palatal and palatal nasals.

Palatal nasals are more common than the palatal stops .

Features

Features of a voiced palatal nasal:

Occurrence

Palatal or alveolo-palatal LanguageWordIPAMeaningNotes Albanian 'one' Amharic / 'nine' Aragonese 'June' Asturian 'hut' See Asturian phonology Basque 'female teacher' Breton'embers' Bulgarian 'blue' Only occurs before , , and . See Bulgarian phonology Burmese / 'right(-hand side)' Contrasts with the voiceless palatal nasal . Catalan 'year' Alveolo-palatal or palatal. See Catalan phonologyCantoneseWuzhou dialect / 'day'Alveolo-palatal. In standard Cantonese, is used instead. The romanization uses extended Jyutping). Czech 'horse' May be intermediate between palatal and alveolo-palatal. See Czech phonology Dinka 'very' Dutch 'orange' Not all dialects. See Dutch phonology English Malay dialect canyon 'canyon' Common in Malay, allophone of . French 'onion' See French phonology Galician 'wine' See Galician phonology Greek / 'New Year's Day' Alveolo-palatal. See Modern Greek phonology Haketia 'spiritual' In free variation with when immediately before . Hindustani Hindi / / 'bird' Usually written in Urdu with , and usually with anusvar in Devanagari, written here with the dead consonant to demonstrate proper spelling. See Hindustani phonology Urdu / Hmong White Hmong / 'daughter-in-law' Hungarian 'mother' Alveolo-palatal with alveolar contact. See Hungarian phonology Italian Standard 'bath' Postalveolo-prepalatal. See Italian phonology Romanesco dialect 'nothing' Irish 'yesterday' Irish contrasts alveolo-palatal , palatal/palatovelar , velar and, in some dialects, palatalized alveolar . See Irish phonology Japanese / 'garden' Alveolar or dento-alveolar. See Japanese phonology Khasi 'snake' Khmer / 'full' See Khmer phonology Korean / 'evening' Alveolo-palatal. See Korean phonology Kurdish Southern / 'eleven' See Kurdish phonology Latvian 'cloudy' See Latvian phonology Macedonian / 'itching' See Macedonian phonology Malagasy — — Palatal. Malay / 'a lot' Does not occur as a syllable-final coda. Allophone of before and so 'peak' is read as , not . See Malay phonology Malayalam / / 'I' See Malayalam phonology Mandarin Sichuanese / 'women' Alveolo-palatal Mapudungun 'spiced blood' North Frisian Mooring 'to fly' Norwegian Northern 'man' See Norwegian phonology Southern Occitan Northern 'Poland' Simultaneous alveolo-palatal and dento-alveolar or dento-alveolo-palatal. See Occitan phonology Southern Gascon 'bath' Polish 'horse' Alveolo-palatal. May be replaced by a nasal palatal approximant in coda position or before fricatives. See Polish phonology Portuguese Many dialectsConsiderações sobre o status das palato-alveolares em português , p. 12. 'Sonia' Possible realization of post-stressed plus vowel. Brazilian 'to dream' Central palatal, not the same that which is pre-palatal.. Citation:Em português, o se aproxima mais do do que do ; por isso será classificado como "central" e não como pré-palatal. O em muitas línguas se realiza como "central"; em português, tende a e se realiza sempre na região prepalatal. May instead be approximant in Brazil and Africa. May be pronounced . See Portuguese phonology European 'to scratch' Quechua 'I' Romanian Transylvanian dialects 'dog' Alveolo-palatal. corresponds to in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology Sanskrit / 'sacrifice' See Sanskrit phonology Scottish Gaelic 'sing' Dento-alveolo-palatal. See Scottish Gaelic phonology Serbo-Croatian / / 'to her' Alveolo-palatal. See Serbo-Croatian phonology Sinhala / 'Spain' Slovak 'liver' Alveolar. See Slovak phonology Slovene Some speakers, archaic 'horse' See Slovene phonology Spanish 'Spanish' Simultaneous alveolo-palatal and dento-alveolar or dento-alveolo-palatal. See Spanish phonology Swahili / 'meat' Tamil / / 'Sunday' Alveolo-palatal. See Tamil phonology Toki Pona Some speakers 'line' Tyap 'animal' Ukrainian / 'shadow' Alveolo-palatal. See Ukrainian phonology West Frisian 'next to' Phonemically . See West Frisian phonology Vietnamese Hanoi / 'agile, to run fast, vivacious' "Laminoalveolar". See Vietnamese phonology Ha Tinh / Wolof / Wu Shanghainese / 'women' Alveolo-palatal. Changzhounese / 'you' Alveolo-palatal. Yi / 'sit' Alveolo-palatal. Zulu 'bird' Alveolo-palatal.

Post-palatal

There is also a voiced post-palatal or pre-velar nasal in some languages. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for this sound, but it can be transcribed as , (both symbols indicate a retracted ), or (both symbols indicate an advanced ).

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes German Standard 'common' Allophone of before and after front vowels.. See Standard German phonology Lithuanian 'cod' Allophone of before palatalized velars; typically transcribed in IPA with . See Lithuanian phonology Mapudungun 'nest' Polish 'coal' Allophone of before . See Polish phonology Romanian 'inquiry' Allophone of used before the palatalized allophones of . Typically transcribed in IPA with . See Romanian phonology Turkish 'color' Allophone of before and . See Turkish phonology Uzbek 'thousand' Word-final allophone of after front vowels. Vietnamese Hanoi / 'agile, to run fast, vivacious' Final allophone of . See Vietnamese phonology Yanyuwa 'strip of turtle fat' Post-palatal; contrasts with post-velar .

See also Nasal palatal approximant Index of phonetics articles Ɲ (upper and lower case letter used in some orthographies)

Notes

References

External links