Nasal consonant

Here are some nasal consonants:

• [m] is a voiced, bilabial nasal
• [ɱ] is a voiced labiodental nasal (SAMPA [F])
• [n] is an alveolar or dental nasal
• [ɳ] voiced retroflex nasal, common in Indic languages
• [ɲ] voiced palatal nasal (SAMPA [J]); is an usual sound in European languages as in: Spanish ñ; or French and Italian gn; or Catalan and Hungarian ny; or Portuguese nh.
• [ŋ] voiced velar nasal (SAMPA [N]), as in sing.
• [ɴ] voiced uvular nasal

English, German and Cantonese have [m], [n] and [ŋ]

French has [m], [n] and [ɲ]

Catalan and Italian have [m], [n], [ɲ] as phonemes, and [ŋ] as an allophone.

Spanish has [m], [n], [ɲ] as phonemes, and [ɱ] and [ŋ] as allophones.

French and Portuguese have nasal vowels. In IPA, nasal vowels are indicated by placing a tilde (~) over the vowel in question. So French sang = /sã/.

See: phonetics, stop, fricative, affricate, approximant, International Phonetic Alphabet.

Referenced By