Velar nasal
The
velar nasal is a type of
consonantal sound, used in some
spoken languages. The symbol in the
International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent
X-SAMPA symbol is
N.
Features of the velar nasal:
* Its
manner of articulation is
stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
* Its
place of articulation is
velar which means it is articulated with the back part of the
tongue (the dorsum) against the
soft palate (the velum).
* Its
phonation type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
* It is a
nasal consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the nose.
* It is a
central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
* The
airstream mechanism is
pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the
lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the
glottis or the mouth.
The IPA symbol is a lowercase letter
n with a leftward tail protruding from the bottom of the right stem of the letter. Compare n and . Both the symbol and the sound are commonly called as "eng" or "engma" and sometimes in reference to
Greek, "agma". The symbol should not be confused with , the symbol for the
retroflex nasal, which has a
rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the
right stem or with , the symbol for the
palatal nasal, which has a
leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the
left stem.
The velar nasal occurs in English, and it is the sound denoted by the letters 'ng' as in
sing; it can be denoted by the letter 'n,' but only before velar consonants such as the letter 'k,' as in
bank.
The [Å‹] sound is a fairly common sound cross-linguistically. It is unusual in that in many languages it is only permitted in postvocalic positions (after vowels), like in English,
Mandarin Chinese, and
Korean. However, in other languages it is permitted at the beginnings of syllables, like in the name of the language
Ngaju Dayak;
Nenets even inserts it in word-initial position. In
Cantonese Chinese, not only is it permitted at the beginning of syllables, but it can be a standalone syllable itself. For instance, the surname
Ng (sometimes transliterated as
Eng) is a common
Cantonese surname and is pronounced (呉).
In
Ancient Greek it was written with a gamma γ, and it was probably an
allophone of /n/, as in
Italian,
Spanish and
Modern Greek. In modern
Germanic languages, it is a separate phonemeâ€"originally, it was only an allophone in Germanic, too. Nevertheless, there is a
Runic letter that represents [Å‹]. In his book
Ancient Scripts And Phonological Knowledge, Gary D. Miller argues that the Runic [Å‹]-letter is composed of two gammas - however, two gammas never represented [Å‹] in Greek, but . In Latin, [Å‹] was represented by
n before
c,
g; and by
g before
n; thus,
agnus was pronounced /aŋnus/.
In
Northern Sami, [Å‹] is represented by the letter
Å‹.
In
Finnish, 'nk' represents [Å‹k] while 'ng' represents the geminated [Å‹Å‹]. There is no /g/ in 'ng'. For example,
lanka [laŋka] vs.
langan [laŋŋan] vs.
lannan [lannan].
In
Galician [Å‹] is represented by the digraph
nh.
In
Slavic languages it is an
allophone of /n/ before
k and
g, written
g in
ng is always pronounced. It can be also pronounced [nk], [ng], but it is not very usual. Examples: banka [baŋka] (or [banka]), bingo [biŋgo] (or [bingo]).
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