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The 'alveolar nasal' is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar nasals is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is n.
There are few languages that lack this sound but have an ''m'' sound (e.g., Samoan). There are some languages (e.g., Rotokas) that lack both ''m'' and ''n''.

Contents

Features

Occurrence

See also

Features

Features of the alveolar nasal:

★ Its manner of articulation is stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.

★ Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, termed respectively ''apical'' and ''laminal''.

★ 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.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Czech		'''n'a''		'on'	See Czech phonology
English		'''n'ice''		'nice'	See English phonology
Finnish		''a'nn'a'n'''		'I give'	See Finnish phonology
French		''co'nn'exion''		'connection'	See French phonology
Georgian		კა'ნ'ი		'skin'
German		''La'n'ze''		'lance'	See German phonology
Greek		'ν'άμα		'communion wine'	See Modern Greek phonology
Hindi		नया		'new'
Hungarian		'''n'agyi''		'grandma'	See Hungarian phonology
Italian		'''n'a'n'o''		'dwarf'	See Italian phonology
Japanese		反対/''ha'n'tai''		'opposite'	See Japanese phonology
Korean		나/'''n'a''		'I'	See Korean phonology
Norwegian		''ma'nn'''		'man'	See Norwegian phonology
Pirahã		'''g'íxai''		'you'
Swedish		''de'n'''		'it' (common gender)	See Swedish phonology
Turkish		'''n'ede'n'''		'reason'

See also

★ List of phonetic topics