Dental nasal

Dental nasal
n̪
Image
IPA number	116 408
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	n​̪
Unicode (hex)	U+006E U+032A
X-SAMPA	n_d
Kirshenbaum	n[

The dental nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨n̪⟩.

Features

Features of the dental nasal:

• Its manner of articulation is stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also nasal, the blocked airflow is redirected through the nose.
• Its place of articulation is dental which means it is articulated with the tongue at either the upper or lower teeth, or both. (Most stops and liquids described as dental are actually denti-alveolar.)
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is a nasal consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the nose, either exclusively (nasal stops) or in addition to through the mouth.
• Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the central–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

True dental consonants are relatively uncommon. In the Romance languages n is often called dental. However, the rearmost contact (which is what gives a consonant its distinctive sound) is actually alveolar, or perhaps denti-alveolar. The difference between the Romance languages and English is not so much where the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth, as which part of the tongue makes the contact. In English it is the tip of the tongue (such sounds are termed apical), whereas 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 (or less commonly laminal) dental n. It is found in Dravidian languages such as Tamil and Malayalam, and in the South-American Mapudungun. For example, in the Malayalam pronunciation of "Nārāyanan", the first "n" is dental (the second is retroflex and the third alveolar).

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Arabic	Standard[citation needed]	قرن	[qɑrn̪]	'century'	See Arabic phonology
Catalan		cantar	[kən̪ˈt̪a]	'to sing'	Allophone of /n/. See Catalan phonology
Dinka		nhiar	[n̪iar]	'love'	Contrasts with alveolar /n/
Finnish		kanto	[ˈkɑn̪t̪o̞]	'tree stump'	Allophone of /n/. See Finnish phonology
French		connexion	[kɔn̪ɛksjɔ̃]	'connection'	See French phonology
Greek		άνθρωπος/ánthropos	[ˈan̪θro̞po̞s̠]	'human'	Allophone of /n/. See Modern Greek phonology
Malayalam		പന്നി	[pən̪n̪i]	'pig'
Polish		noga	[ˈn̪ɔɡa]	'leg'	See Polish phonology
Portuguese		nariz	[n̪ɐˈɾiʃ]	'nose'	See Portuguese phonology
Russian		ханжой	[xɐn̪ˈʐoj]	'hypocrite' (instr.)	Contrasts with palatalized alveolar nasal. See Russian phonology
Spanish		antes	[ˈan̪t̪e̞s]	'before'	Allophone of /n/. See Spanish phonology
Swedish		nod	[nuːd]	'node'	See Swedish phonology
Tsez		лъоIно	[ˈɬo̞ˤn̪o̞]	'three'
Ukrainian		небо	[ˈn̪ɛ.bɔ]	'sky'	See Ukrainian phonology
Vietnamese		não	[n̪aːw˧ˀ˥]	'brain'	See Vietnamese phonology

See also

• List of phonetics topics

Bibliography

• Cruz-Ferreira, Madalena (1995), "European Portuguese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 25 (2): 90–94, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005223 
• Engstrand, Olle (1999), "Swedish", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the usage of the International Phonetic Alphabet., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 140–142, ISBN 0-521-63751-1 
• Fougeron, Cecile; Smith, Caroline L (1993), "Illustrations of the IPA:French", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 23 (2): 73–76, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004874 
• Jassem, Wiktor (2003), "Polish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (1): 103–107, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001191 
• Jones, Daniel; Dennis, Ward (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521067367 
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants (Second ed.), Blackwell, ISBN 0631214119 
• Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Fernández-Planas, Ana Ma.; Carrera-Sabaté, Josefina (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255–259, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001373 
• Remijsen, Bert; Manyang, Caguor Adong (2009), "Luanyjang Dinka", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 39 (1): 113–124, doi:10.1017/S0025100308003605 
• Thompson, Laurence (1959), "Saigon phonemics", Language 35 (3): 454–476, doi:10.2307/411232, JSTOR 411232