Velar nasal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

IPA – number	119
IPA – text	ŋ
IPA – image
Entity	ŋ
X-SAMPA	N
Kirshenbaum	N
Sound sample (help·info)

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 ŋ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is N.

Contents 1 Features 2 Varieties of [ŋ] 3 Occurrence 3.1 In English 4 In other languages 5 See also

[edit] Features

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 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.

[edit] Varieties of [ŋ]

IPA	Description
ŋ	plain ŋ
ŋ̊	voiceless ŋ
ŋ̍	syllabic ŋ
ŋ̈	breathy voiced ŋ
ŋ̃	creaky voiced ŋ
ŋw	labialized ŋ

[edit] Occurrence

[edit] In English

In English, the velar nasal can only occur in the syllable coda. At the end of a word (or morpheme), where it's written as <ng>, it represents the velar nasal as a phoneme: sing [sɪŋ] (/sɪŋ/). Before a velar stop (/k/ or /g/), where it occurs as an underspecified nasal (the archiphoneme |N|) and written as <n>:bank [bæŋk] (/bæNk/); finger [fɪŋ.gə(ɹ)] (/fɪn.gr/)

[edit] In other languages

In most European languages, the velar nasal is restricted to the syllable coda, and usually occurs only as an allophone of [n] before the velar plosives [k] and [g]. Some Asian languages, notably Cantonese and Vietnamese, allow the sound word-initially, as do most African and Australian Aboriginal languages.

The velar nasal does not occur at all in most indigenous languages of the Americas, nor in a large number of European and Middle Eastern languages. Whilst almost all languages have [m] and [n], only about half have a velar nasal. As with the voiced velar plosive, the relative rarity of the velar nasal is undoubtedly due to the fact that the small oral cavity used to produce velar consonants makes it more difficult for voicing to be sustained. It also makes it much more difficult to allow air to escape through the nose as is required for a nasal consonant.

• Chukchi: ңыроқ [ŋəɹoq], "two"
• Cantonese Chinese: 呉 [ŋ̩], "surname Ng"
• Dinka: ŋa [ŋa], "who"
• Finnish: langan [lɑŋːɑn], "of the thread"
• French: parking [paʀkiŋ], "parking lot"
• Galician: gracinhas [graθiŋas̺], "thank you"
• German: lang [laŋ], "long"
• Greek: άγχος [ˈaŋ.xo̞s̺̠], "stress, anxiety"
• Italian: anche [ˈaŋke] "also" (only before velar consonant)
• Japanese (standard): 南極 (nankyoku) [naŋkʲokɯ], "the South Pole"; (many eastern dialects): 鍵 (kagi) [kaŋi], "key"
• Ket: [baʔŋ], "earth"
• Korean: bang [paŋ], "room"
• Mandarin Chinese: 北京 [pei˨˩˦ tɕɪŋ˥˥], "Beijing"
• Norwegian: tango [taŋgu], "tango"
• Polish: bank [baŋk], "bank"
• Provençal: vin [viŋ], "wine"
• Sanskrit: अङ्ग [əŋgə], "limb"
• Seri: comcáac [koŋˈkaak], "Seri people"
• Spanish: domingo [d̪o̞ˈmiŋgo̞], "Sunday"
• Swahili: ng'ombe [ŋɔmbɛ], "cow"
• Swedish: bank [baŋkʰ]

[edit] See also

• List of phonetics topics

Consonants (List, table)	See also: IPA, Vowels
Pulmonics Bilabial Lab'den. Dental Alveolar Postalv. Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn. Epiglottal Glottal Non-pulmonics and other symbols Nasals m ɱ n̪ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ Clicks  ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ Plosives p b p̪ b̪ t̪ d̪ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Implo­­sives  ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ Fricatives  ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ h ɦ Ejec­­tives  pʼ tʼ kʼ qʼ sʼ Approximants  β̞ ʋ ð̞ ɹ ɻ j ɰ Other laterals  ɺ ɫ Trills ʙ r • ʀ • Co-articulated approximants ʍ w ɥ Flaps & Taps ѵ̟ ѵ ɾ ɽ • Co-articulated fricatives ɕ ʑ ɧ Lat. Fricatives ɬ ɮ • • • Affricates  ʦ ʣ ʧ ʤ Lat. Appr'mants l ɭ ʎ ʟ Co-articulated stops  k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m
This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged impossible.