The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', 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 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. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''English'' and ''ink''. 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 , and the equivalent
X-SAMPA symbol is
N
. The IPA symbol is 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
palatal nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the left stem. Both the IPA symbol and the sound are commonly called '
eng' or 'engma'.
As a
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
, the velar nasal does not occur in many of the
indigenous languages of the Americas
Over a thousand indigenous languages are spoken by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. These languages cannot all be demonstrated to be related to each other and are classified into a hundred or so language families (including a large nu ...
or in many
European,
Middle Eastern or
Caucasian languages, but it is extremely common in
Australian Aboriginal languages and is also common in many languages of
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...
,
East Asia
East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea ...
,
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...
and
Polynesia
Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...
. While almost all languages have and , is rarer. Only half of the 469 languages surveyed in had a velar nasal phoneme; as a further curiosity, many of them limit its occurrence to the
syllable coda
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological " ...
. In many languages that do not have the velar nasal as a phoneme, it occurs as an allophone of before velar consonants. An example of it used this way is the
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
word ''income'', of which the pronunciation can be
realized as either or .
An example of a language that lacks a phonemic or allophonic velar nasal is
Russian, in which is pronounced as laminal denti-alveolar even before velar consonants.
Some languages have the pre-velar nasal, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical velar nasal, though not as front as the prototypical
palatal nasal - see that article for more information.
Conversely, some languages have the post-velar nasal,
[Instead of "post-velar", it can be called "retracted velar", "backed velar", "pre-uvular", "advanced uvular" or "fronted uvular".] which is articulated slightly behind the place of articulation of a prototypical velar nasal, though not as back as the prototypical
uvular nasal.
Features
Features of the voiced velar nasal:
Occurrence
See also
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Index of phonetics articles
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Eng (letter)
Notes
References
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External links
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{{IPA navigation
Velar consonants
Nasal consonants
Pulmonic consonants
Voiced consonants