Velar nasal

"Agma" redirects here. For other uses, see AGMA (disambiguation).

Velar nasal
ŋ
Image
IPA number	119
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ŋ
Unicode (hex)	U+014B
X-SAMPA	N
Kirshenbaum	N
Sound

The velar nasal is the sound of ng in English sing. It is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ŋ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is N.

As a phoneme, the velar nasal does not occur in many of the indigenous languages of the Americas, nor in a large number of European or Middle Eastern languages, though it is extremely common in Australian Aboriginal languages. While almost all languages have /m/ and /n/, /ŋ/ is rarer. Only half of the 469 languages surveyed in Anderson (2008) had a velar nasal phoneme; as a further peculiarity, a large proportion of them disallow it from occurring word-initially.

As with the voiced velar plosive, the relative rarity of the velar nasal is because the small oral cavity used to produce velar consonants makes it more difficult for voicing to be sustained.^{[citation needed]} It also makes it much more difficult to allow air to escape through the nose as is required for a nasal stop.

In many languages that do not have the velar nasal as a phoneme, it occurs as an allophone of other nasals before velar consonants.

Features

Features of the velar 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 velar, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue at the soft palate.
• 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.

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 ⟨ŋ⟩. Both the symbol and the sound are commonly called as "eng" or "engma" and sometimes in reference to Greek, "angma". The symbol ⟨ŋ⟩ should not be confused with ⟨ɳ ⟩, the symbol for the retroflex nasal, which has a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem, or with ⟨ ɲ⟩, the symbol for the palatal nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the left stem.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Albanian		ngaqë	[ŋɡacə]	'because'
Aleut		chaang	[tʃɑːŋ]	'five'
Basque		hanka	[haŋka]	'leg'
Catalan		sang	[ˈsaŋ(k)]	'blood'	See Catalan phonology
Chinese	Cantonese	昂/ngong4	[ŋɔːŋ˩]	'raise'	See Cantonese phonology
	Mandarin	北京/Běijīng	[peɪ˨˩tɕiŋ˥]	'Beijing'	See Mandarin phonology
	Wu	五	[ŋ˩˧]	'five'
Chukchi		ңыроқ	[ŋəɹoq]	'two'
Czech		tank	[taŋk]	'tank'	See Czech phonology
Dinka		ŋa	[ŋa]	'who'
Danish		sang	[sɑŋˀ]	'song'	See Danish phonology
Dutch		angst	[ɑŋst]	'fear'	See Dutch phonology
English		sing	[sɪŋ]	'sing'	Restricted to the syllable coda. See English phonology
Fijian		gone	[ˈŋone]	'child'
Filipino		ngayon	[ˈŋajon]	'now'
Finnish		kangas	[kɑŋːɑs]	'cloth'	Occurs in native vocabulary only intervocally and before /k/. See Finnish phonology
French		parking	[paʀkiŋ]	'parking lot'	Occurs only in words borrowed from English. See French phonology
Galician		unha	[ˈuŋa]	'one' (f.)
German		lang	[laŋ]	'long'	See German phonology
Greek		αποτυγχάνω/apotyncháno	[aˌpo̞tiŋˈxano̞]	'I fail'	See Modern Greek phonology
Hindi-Urdu		रङ्ग/رنگ	[rəŋɡ]	'color'	See Hindi–Urdu phonology
Hungarian		ing	[iŋɡ]	'shirt'	Allophone of /n/. See Hungarian phonology
Icelandic		göng	[ˈkøyŋk]	'tunnel'	See Icelandic phonology
Indonesian		bangun	[baŋun]	'wake up'
Inuktitut		ᐴᙳᐆᖅ/puunnguuq	[puːŋŋuːq]	'dog'
Inuvialuktun		qamnguiyuaq	[qamŋuijuaq]	'snores'
Irish		ceann carrach	[caŋ ˈkaɾˠəx]	'a scabbed one'	See Irish phonology
Italian		anche	[ˈaŋke]	'also'	See Italian phonology
Itelmen		қниң	[qniŋ]	'one'
Japanese	Standard	南極/nankyoku	[naŋkʲokɯ]	'the South Pole'	See Japanese phonology
	Eastern dialects	鍵/kagi	[kaŋi]	'key'
Kagayanen		?	[manaŋ]	'older sister'
Ket		аяң	[ajaŋ]	'to damn'
Korean		방/bang	[paŋ]	'room'	See Korean phonology
Macedonian		aнглиски	[ˈaŋɡliski]	'English'	Occurs occasionally as an allophone of /n/ before /k/ and /ɡ/. See Macedonian phonology
Malay		bangun	[baŋun]	'wake up'
Malayalam		മാങ്ങ	[maːŋŋɐ]	'mango'
Māori		ngā	[ŋaː]	'the'
Mari		еҥ	[jeŋ]	'human'
Nganasan		ӈаӈ	[ŋaŋ]	'mouth'
Nivkh		ңамг	[ŋamɡ]	'seven'
North Frisian	Mooring	kåchelng	[kɔxəlŋ]	'stove'
Norwegian		gang	[ɡɑŋ]	'hallway'	See Norwegian phonology
Polish		bank	[baŋk]	'bank'	See Polish phonology
Occitan	Provençal	vin	[viŋ]	'wine'
Rapanui		hanga	[haŋa]	'bay'	Sometimes transcribed as <g>
Russian		функция	[ˈfuŋkt͡sɨjə]	'function'	Informal and occurs irregularly, only before /k/ or /ɡ/. See Russian phonology
Seri		comcáac	[koŋˈkaak]	'Seri people'
Shona		nanga	[ŋaŋɡa]	'witch-doctor'
Slovene		tank	[taŋk]	'tank'
Spanish		domingo	[d̪o̞ˈmĩŋɡo̞]	'Sunday'	Allophone of /n/. See Spanish phonology
Swahili		ng'ombe	[ŋɔmbɛ]	'cow'
Swedish		ingenting	[ɪŋːɛntʰɪŋ]	'nothing'	See Swedish phonology
Thai		งาน	[ŋaːn]	'work'
Tundra Nenets		ӈэва	[ŋæewa]	'head'
Turkmen		birmeňzeş	[biɾmeŋðeʃ]	'identical'
Venetian		man	[maŋ]	'hand'
Vietnamese		ngà	[ŋaː˨˩]	'ivory'	See Vietnamese phonology
West Frisian		kening	[kenɪŋ]	'king'
Yi		ꉢ/nga	[ŋa˧]	'I'
Yup'ik		ungungssiq	[uŋuŋssiq]	'animal'
Zapotec	Tilquiapan	yan	[jaŋ]	'neck'	Word-final allophone of lenis /n/

See also

• List of phonetics topics

Bibliography

• Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2008), "The Velar Nasal", in Haspelmath, Martin; Dryer, Matthew S; Gil, David et al., The World Atlas of Language Structures Online, Munich: Max Planck Digital Library, http://wals.info/feature/9, retrieved 2008-04-30 
• Carbonell, Joan F.; Llisterri, Joaquim (1992), "Catalan", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (1–2): 53–56, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004618 
• Gussenhoven, Carlos (1992), "Dutch", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 22 (2): 45–47, doi:10.1017/S002510030000459X 
• Jassem, Wiktor (2003), "Polish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (1): 103–107, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001191 
• Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants: An Introduction to the Sounds of Languages, 1, Wiley-Blackwell 
• 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 
• Merrill, Elizabeth (2008), "Tilquiapan Zapotec", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 38 (1): 107–114 
• Okada, Hideo (1991), "Phonetic Representation:Japanese", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 21 (2): 94–97 
• Olson, Kenneth; Mielke, Jeff; Sanicas-Daguman, Josephine; Pebley, Carol Jean; Paterson, Hugh J., III (2010), "The phonetic status of the (inter)dental approximant", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 40 (2): 199–215, doi:10.1017/S0025100309990296 
• Reed, A.W., ed. (2001), The Reed Consise Māori Dictionary 
• Rogers, Derek; d'Arcangeli, Luciana (2004), "Italian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (1): 117–121, doi:10.1017/S0025100304001628 
• Wells, J.C. (1989), "Computer-Coded Phonemic Notation of Individual Languages of the European Community", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 19 (1): 31–54, doi:10.1017/S0025100300005892