Nasal consonant

A **nasal consonant** is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to come out through the nose, while the air is not allowed to pass through the mouth because something (like the tongue or the lips) is stopping it. Examples of nasal consonants in English are  and , in words such as _nose_ and _mouth_.

## Definition

Nearly all nasal consonants are **nasal stops** (or **nasal continuants**), where air comes out through the nose but not through the mouth, as it is blocked by the lips or tongue.

Most nasals are voiced, and, in fact, the nasal sounds  and  are among the most common sounds used in languages of the world. **Voiceless nasals** are used in a few languages, such as Burmese and Welsh.

In terms of acoustics, nasal stops are sonorants, meaning that they do not significantly stop the flow of air (as it can  come out the nose). However, nasals are also stops in their articulation because the flow of air through the mouth is blocked completely. So nasal consonants sound both like sonorants and like obstruents.

Acoustically, nasal stops have bands of energy at around 200 and 2,000 Hz.

|colspan=3|Voiced|colspan=3|Voiceless|||
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|voiced bilabial nasal||[<samp>m</samp>]|voiceless bilabial nasal|or|[<samp>m_0</samp>]|
|voiced labiodental nasal||[<samp>F</samp>]|voiceless labiodental nasal|or|[<samp>F_0</samp>]|
|voiced dental nasal||[<samp>n_d</samp>]|voiceless dental nasal|or|[<samp>n_d_0</samp>]|
|voiced alveolar nasal||[<samp>n</samp>]|Voiceless alveolar nasal|or|[<samp>n_0</samp>]|
|voiced retroflex nasal||[<samp>n`</samp>]|voiceless retroflex nasal|or|[<samp>n`_0</samp>]|
|voiced palatal nasal||[<samp>J</samp>]|voiceless palatal nasal|or|[<samp>J_0</samp>]|
|voiced velar nasal, commonly written _ng_.||[<samp>N</samp>]|voiceless velar nasal|or|[<samp>N_0</samp>]|
|voiced uvular nasal||[<samp>N\</samp>]|voiceless uvular nasal|or|[<samp>N\_0</samp>]|

Examples of languages containing nasal consonants:

The voiced retroflex nasal is [ɳ] is a common sound in Indic languages.

The voiced palatal nasal [ɲ] is a common sound in European languages, such as: Spanish _ñ_; or French and Italian _gn_; or Catalan, Hungarian and Luganda _ny_; or Czech and Slovak _ň_; or Polish _ń_; or Occitan and Portuguese _nh_; or Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin _nj_.

English, German and Cantonese have ,   and . Tamil has its own different letters for the sounds , , , ,  and  (ம,ந,ன,ண,ஞ,ங).

Catalan, Occitan, Spanish, and Italian have , ,  as phonemes, and  and  as allophones. (In several American dialects of Spanish, there is no palatal nasal but only a palatalized nasal, , as in English _canyon_. In Brazilian Portuguese nh is frequently pronounced as a nasalized [ j ], that is, as a nasal glide. This vowel also exists in Guaraní.)

The term 'nasal stop' will often be abbreviated to just "nasal". However, there are also nasal fricatives, nasal flaps, nasal glides, and nasal vowels, as in French, Portuguese, Catalan (dialectal feature), Yoruba, Gbe, Polish, and Ljubljana Slovene. In the IPA, nasal vowels are indicated by placing a tilde (~) over the vowel. : French _sang_ .

A few languages use voiceless nasal consonants. Some of these are Icelandic, Burmese, Jalapa Mazatec, Kildin Sami, Welsh, and Central Alaskan Yup'ik.

## References

- Ferguson (1963) 'Assumptions about nasals', in Greenberg (ed.) _Universals of Language_, pp 50–60.
- Saout, J. le (1973) 'Languages sans consonnes nasales', _Annales de l Université d'Abidjan_, H, 6, 1, 179–205.
- Williamson, Kay (1989) 'Niger–Congo overview', in Bendor-Samuel & Hartell (eds.) _The Niger–Congo Languages_, 3–45.