Velar_nasal

Voiced velar nasal

Voiced velar nasal

Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ŋ⟩ in IPA

"Velar nasal" redirects here. For the voiceless consonant, see Voiceless velar nasal.
"Agma" redirects here. For other uses, see Agma (disambiguation).

The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ng in English sing as well as n before velar consonants as in English and ink. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ŋ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is N. The IPA symbol ⟨ŋ⟩ is similar to ⟨ɳ⟩, the symbol for the retroflex nasal, which has a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem, and to ⟨ɲ⟩, the symbol for the palatal nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the left stem. Both the IPA symbol and the sound are commonly called 'eng' or 'engma'.

Quick Facts ŋ, IPA Number ...

While almost all languages have /m/ and /n/ as phonemes, /ŋ/ is rarer.[1] Half of the 469 languages surveyed in Anderson (2008) had a velar nasal phoneme; as a further curiosity, many of them limit its occurrence to the syllable coda. The velar nasal does not occur in many of the languages of the Americas, the Middle East, or the Caucasus, but it is extremely common among Australian Aboriginal languages, languages of Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asian and Southeast Asian languages, and Polynesian languages. In many languages that do not have the velar nasal as a phoneme, such as the Romance languages, it occurs as an allophone of /n/ before velar consonants. This kind of assimilation can even be found in languages with phonemic voiced velar nasals, such as English. An example of this phenomenon is the word income; its underlying representation, /ˈɪnˌkʌm/, can be realized as either [ˈɪnˌkʌm] or [ˈɪŋˌkʌm].

An example of a language that lacks a phonemic or allophonic velar nasal is Russian, in which /n/ is pronounced as laminal denti-alveolar [n̪] even before velar consonants.[2]

Some languages have the pre-velar nasal,[3] which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical velar nasal, though not as front as the prototypical palatal nasal - see that article for more information.

Conversely, some languages have the post-velar nasal,[4] which is articulated slightly behind the place of articulation of a prototypical velar nasal, though not as back as the prototypical uvular nasal.

Features

Features of the voiced velar nasal:

Occurrence

More information Language, Word ...

See also

Notes

  1. [1]
    Ladefoged (2005), p. 164. The oral counterparts /p, t, k/ are found together in almost all languages
  2. [2]
    Jones & Ward (1969), p. 160.
  3. [3]
    Instead of "pre-velar", it can be called "advanced velar", "fronted velar", "front-velar", "palato-velar", "post-palatal", "retracted palatal" or "backed palatal".
  4. [4]
    Instead of "post-velar", it can be called "retracted velar", "backed velar", "pre-uvular", "advanced uvular" or "fronted uvular".
  5. [5]
    Ladefoged (2005), p. 165.
  6. [6]
    Dum-Tragut (2009), p. 19.
  7. [7]
    Sabev, Mitko. "Bulgarian Sound System". Archived from the original on 11 July 2012. Retrieved 31 July 2013.
  8. [8]
    Carbonell & Llisterri (1992), p. 53.
  9. [9]
    Gussenhoven (1992), p. 45.
  10. [10]
    Wells (1989), p. 44.
  11. [11]
    Rogers & d'Arcangeli (2004), p. 118.
  12. [12]
    Okada (1999), p. 118.
  13. [13]
    Olson et al. (2010), pp. 206–207.
  14. [14]
    Gilles & Trouvain (2013), pp. 67–68.
  15. [15]
    Aikio & Ylikoski (2022), p. 151.
  16. [16]
    Jassem (2003), p. 103.
  17. [17]
    Gussmann (1974), pp. 107, 111 and 114.
  18. [18]
    Ostaszewska & Tambor (2000), pp. 35, 41 and 86.
  19. [19]
    Pop (1938), p. 31.
  20. [20]
    Landau et al. (1999), p. 67
  21. [21]
    Martínez-Celdrán, Fernández-Planas & Carrera-Sabaté (2003), p. 258.
  22. [22]
    Thompson (1959), pp. 458–461.
  23. [23]
    Merrill (2008), p. 109.

References

  • Aikio, Ante; Ylikoski, Jussi (2022), "North Saami", in Bakró-Nagy, Marianne; Laakso, Johanna; Skribnik, Elena (eds.), The Oxford Guide to the Uralic Languages, Oxford Guides to the World's Languages, Oxford University Press, pp. 147–177, doi:10.1093/oso/9780198767664.003.0010, ISBN 978-0-19-876766-4
  • Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2008), "The Velar Nasal", in Haspelmath, Martin; Dryer, Matthew S; Gil, David; et al. (eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures Online, Munich: Max Planck Digital Library, 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, S2CID 249411809
  • Dum-Tragut, Jasmine (2009), Armenian: Modern Eastern Armenian, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company
  • Gilles, Peter; Trouvain, Jürgen (2013), "Luxembourgish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43 (1): 67–74, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000278
  • Gussenhoven, Carlos (1992), "Dutch", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 22 (2): 45–47, doi:10.1017/S002510030000459X, S2CID 243772965
  • Gussmann, Edmund (1974), Fisiak, Jacek (ed.), "Nasality in Polish and English" (PDF), Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics, 2, Poznań: Adam Mickiewicz University: 105–122
  • Jassem, Wiktor (2003), "Polish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (1): 103–107, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001191
  • Jones, Daniel; Ward, Dennis (1969), The Phonetics of Russian, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-15300-3
  • Ladefoged, Peter (2005), Vowels and Consonants: An Introduction to the Sounds of Languages, vol. 1, Wiley-Blackwell
  • Landau, Ernestina; Lončarić, Mijo; Horga, Damir; Škarić, Ivo (1999), "Croatian", Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 66–69, ISBN 0-521-65236-7
  • 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" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 38 (1): 107–114, doi:10.1017/S0025100308003344
  • Okada, Hideo (1999), "Japanese", in International Phonetic Association (ed.), Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, Cambridge University Press, pp. 117–119, ISBN 978-0-52163751-0
  • Olson, Kenneth; Mielke, Jeff; Sanicas-Daguman, Josephine; Pebley, Carol Jean; Paterson, Hugh J. III (2010), "The phonetic status of the (inter)dental approximant" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 40 (2): 199–215, doi:10.1017/S0025100309990296, S2CID 38504322
  • Ostaszewska, Danuta; Tambor, Jolanta (2000), Fonetyka i fonologia współczesnego języka polskiego, Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, ISBN 83-01-12992-1
  • Pop, Sever (1938), Micul Atlas Linguistic Român, Muzeul Limbii Române Cluj
  • Reed, A.W. (2001), Kāretu, Tīmoti (ed.), The Reed Concise 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, S2CID 145148170
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