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The voiced alveolar 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 w ...
al sound used in numerous 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 dental, alveolar, and postalveolar 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) 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 In linguistics, a denti-alveolar consonant or dento-alveolar consonant is a consonant that is articulated with a flat tongue against the alveolar ridge and the upper teeth, such as and in languages such as French, Italian and Spanish. That is, ...
. 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 Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...
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, 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 ''
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 ...
''. **
Denti-alveolar In linguistics, a denti-alveolar consonant or dento-alveolar consonant is a consonant that is articulated with a flat tongue against the alveolar ridge and the upper teeth, such as and in languages such as French, Italian and Spanish. That is, ...
, 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, 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, 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


See also

* Index of phonetics articles


Notes


References

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


External links

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