A voiced alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the sound in nice. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar nasals is .

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, Palauan, and colloquial Samoan (however, these languages all have . An example of a language without and is Edo). 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. 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).

However, there are languages with true apical 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 pronunciation of Nārāyanan, the first n is dental, the second is retroflex, and the third alveolar.

A voiced postalveolar nasal occurs in a number of Australian Aboriginal languages, including Djeebbana and Jingulu.

Features

Features of a 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. Denti-alveolar, 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 Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Belarusian / 'new' Laminal denti-alveolar. Contrasts with palatalized form. See Belarusian phonologyBulgarian / 'woman' Laminal denti-alveolar.Bengaliˈclose'Allophone of after and before denti-alveolar . See Bengali phonology Catalan Most dialects 'to sing' Laminal denti-alveolar. Allophone of before . See Catalan phonology Some dialects punt 'point' Laminal denti-alveolar. Word-final realisation of , found mainly in Catalonia. Many Valencian dialects retain .Chuvash/[ʃɒn̪a]'a fly' Dutch Belgian 'niece' Laminal denti-alveolar, sometimes simply alveolar. See Dutch phonology English month 'month' Interdental. Allophone of before . Esperanto 'one who hopes' See Esperanto phonology Finnish 'beach' Allophone of before . French 'connection' Laminal denti-alveolar, sometimes simply alveolar. See French phonology Greek / 'flower' Interdental. Allophone of . See Modern Greek phonologyHindustani Hindi / 'new' See Hindi–Urdu phonology Urdu / Hmong White Hmong / 'eat' Hungarian 'grandma' Laminal denti-alveolar. See Hungarian phonology Italian 'to sing' Laminal denti-alveolar. Allophone of before . See Italian phonology Irish 'nine' Velarized.Japanese涙/namida[n̪ämʲid̪ä]'tear'Laminal denti-alveolar. See Japanese phonology Kashubian 'shower' Laminal denti-alveolar. Kazakh // 'it seemed' Laminal denti-alveolar. Allophone of before . Kyrgyz / 'in the authority' Laminal denti-alveolar. Allophone of before . Latvian 'night' Laminal denti-alveolar. See Latvian phonologyMacedonian / 'nose' Laminal denti-alveolar. See Macedonian phonologyMalayalam / 'dog'Interdental for some speakers. See Malayalam phonology Mapudungun 'male cousin on father's side' Interdental.Marathi/'fingernail'See Marathi phonologyNepali'fraɡrance'Allophone of /n/ in neighbourhood of /t̪, t̪ʰ, d̪, d̪ʱ/. Polish 'nose' Laminal denti-alveolar. Alveolar before . See Polish phonology Portuguese General 'nostril' Laminal denti-alveolar. May nasalize preceding vowel (especially if stressed). Has as allophone, forming from clusters with , and before . Vernacular Paulista Unesp's digital collection – The deleting of /d/ in the morpheme of the gerund in São José do Rio Preto's accent The deletting of /d/ in the morpheme of the gerund in São José do Rio Preto's accent – PDF 'perceiving' Laminal denti-alveolar. Allophone of after a stressed nasal vowel in more stigmatized varieties. See Portuguese phonology Romanian 'hazelnut' Laminal denti-alveolar. See Romanian phonology Russian / 'our' Laminal denti-alveolar, contrasts with palatalized form. See Russian phonology Scottish Gaelic 'nature' Velarized. Contrasts with alveolar and palatal . Serbo-Croatian / 'student' Laminal denti-alveolar. Allophone of before . See Serbo-Croatian phonology Slovene 'con artist' Laminal denti-alveolar. Allophone of before . See Slovene phonology Spanish Most dialects 'to sing' Laminal denti-alveolar. Allophone of before . See Spanish phonologySwahiliBajuni dialect//'rat'Dental. Orthography is variable. Tamil / 'country' See Tamil phonology Telugu / 'To chew' Occurs as an allophone of anuswara when followed by dental stops. Ukrainian / 'our' Laminal denti-alveolar, contrasts with palatalized form. See Ukrainian phonology Uzbek // [n̪imæ] 'what' Laminal denti-alveolar.

Alveolar Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Adyghe /nėfnė 'light' ArabicStandard /nūr 'light' See Arabic phonology Assyrian ܢܘܪܐ/nōra ] 'mirror' Basque 'I' Bengali /naak/nāk 'nose' See Bengali phonologyBreton'christmas' Cantonese 年/nìhn [ni:n˨˩] 'year' See Cantonese phonology Catalan 'snow' Apical. See Catalan phonology Czech 'on' See Czech phonology Dutch 'night' See Dutch phonology English nice 'nice' See English phonology Finnish 'I give' See Finnish phonology German fünf 'five' See German phonology Georgian /k'ani 'skin' Greek / 'communion wine' See Modern Greek phonology Gujarati /nahi 'no' See Gujarati phonology Hawaiian 'to shake' See Hawaiian phonology Hebrew /navon 'wise' See Modern Hebrew phonology Italian 'dwarf' See Italian phonology Irish 'peak' Palatalized. Khmer 'kingdom' See Khmer phonology Korean / 'country' See Korean phonologyKurdishNorthern'animal'See Kurdish phonologyCentral/gîyânlabarSouthern Kyrgyz /banan 'banana' Malay 'cooked rice' Malayalam [äːnə] 'elephant'See Malayalam phonology Maltese 'truncheon' Mandarin難/难/'difficult'See Mandarin phonology Mapudungun 'enough' NgweMmockngie dialect 'sun'Nepali/nakkal'imitation'See Nepali phonology Odia /nāka 'nose' Okinawan 'potato' Can occur as onset, nucleus, or coda. Allophone of [m], [ŋ], and [ɴ] in coda, but phonemic elsewhere.Persianنون/nun[nun]'bread' Pirahã 'you' Polish 'punch' Allophone of (which is normally laminal denti-alveolar ) before . See Polish phonology Punjabi ਨੱਕ/nakk'nose' Scottish Gaelic 'breath' Contrasts with velarised dental and palatal . Slovak 'on' Slovene Common 'news' Some speakers'horse'See Slovene phonology Spanish 'nothing' See Spanish phonologySwahilindizi[n̩dizi]'banana' Tagalog 'thin' Tagalog phonologyThai/[nɔːn]'sleep'See Thai phonologyToki Ponanoka[noka]'foot' Turkish 'reason' See Turkish phonology Tamil /manasu 'mind', 'heart' See Tamil phonology Vietnamese 'you're going' Occurs only before alveolar consonants. See Vietnamese phonology Welsh 'grandmother'See Welsh phonology Western Apache 'cache' West Frisian 'neck' Yi / 'hurt' Zapotec Tilquiapan nanɨɨ 'lady' Contrasts with a fortis alveolar nasal that is not represented in the orthography.

Postalveolar Language Word IPA Meaning NotesBengali'voice'Allophone of after and before postalveolar . See Bengali phonology Catalan 'belly' Allophone of before (), may be alveolo-palatal instead. See Catalan phonology Djeebbana barnmarramarlón̠a 'they two swam' Result of rhotic plus alveolar . English Australian enrol 'enrol' Allophone of before . See Australian English phonology Italian 'angel' Palatalized laminal; allophone of before . See Italian phonology

Variable Language Word IPA Meaning NotesEnglish Scottish nice 'nice' Laminal denti-alveolar for some speakers, alveolar for other speakers. Welsh German Standard 'lance' Varies between laminal denti-alveolar, laminal alveolar and apical alveolar. See Standard German phonology Norwegian Urban East 'man' Varies between laminal denti-alveolar and laminal alveolar. See Norwegian phonology Swedish Central Standard 'now' Varies between laminal denti-alveolar and alveolar, with the former being predominant. See Swedish phonology

See also Index of phonetics articles

Notes

References

External links