Palatal nasal

The palatal nasal is a type of consonant, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J. The IPA symbol is a lowercase letter n with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bottom of the left stem of the letter. Compare n and . 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 velar nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem.

Features

Features of the palatal nasal:

Its manner of articulation is stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
Its place of articulation is palatal which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised against the hard palate.
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.

In English

In some dialects of English, the sequence /nj/ is sometimes realized as the palatal nasal plus a offglide, via coalescence, a type of assimilation. For example, onion might be realized as or canyon might be realized as . However, there are no minimal pairs for [nj and , so the palatal nasal is not a separate phoneme in English.

In other languages

Romance languages

A combination of the palatal nasal with a ^*-like offglide is fairly common in Romance languages:

Catalan

Catalan has as a phoneme, and it is denoted by , like in Catalunya.

French

French has or perhaps as a phoneme, and it is denoted by .

Occitan

Occitan has or perhaps as a phoneme, and it is denoted by .

Istro-Romanian

Istro-Romanian has or perhaps as a phoneme, and it is denoted by <ń>.

Italian

Italian has or perhaps as a phoneme, and it is denoted by , as in gnocchi (a type of pasta).

Portuguese

Portuguese has as a phoneme, and it is denoted by , as in manhã (morning).

Spanish

Spanish has the palatal nasal as a phoneme in many dialects, and this is denoted by <ñ>, as in mañana (tomorrow). However, in Mexico <ñ> is a palatalized alveolar nasal, . The difference is this: a true palatal is pronounced with contact between the middle of the tongue and the palate. The front of the tongue is not involved. In a palatalized alveolar (or dental), it is the front of the tongue that makes the contact, as in but the middle of the tongue is simultaneously raised toward the palate, as in ^*" target="_blank" >and ^*-like offglide.

Galician

Galician has as a phoneme, and it is denoted by <ñ>, as in año (//) - lamb.

Uralic Languages

This phenome is also present in several Uralic Languages of the Finno-Urgic variety:

Finnish

The Eastern dialects of Finnish, but not the standard language, retain the feature of palatalization, and the palatal nasal is the palatalized version of /n/. When the palatal nasal is in the position where standard Finnish would use , it is commonly written , for example mänj or perhaps , compare standard language meni ^*. ^*

Hungarian

Hungarian has as a phoneme, and it is denoted by , as in Ottomány (//). Even when in the final position, it retains its character as and does not degenerate to /nj/. See also Hungarian ny.

Slavic languages

This sound also occurs in Slavic languages, for example in Belarusian and Russian нь, Serbian њ/nj, Polish ń, Croatian nj, and Slovak and Czech ň.

In Czech and Slovak, it is also pronounced in ni ní ^*.

In Polish, it is also pronounced in ni nia ^*," target="_blank" >nio ^*.

Latvian

This sound is written like Ņ ņ.

Vietnamese

Vietnamese has as a phoneme, and it is denoted by , as in nhai (//) - to chew.

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