Palatal nasal

IPA – number	118
IPA – text	ɲ
IPA – image
Entity	ɲ
X-SAMPA	J
Kirshenbaum	n^
Sound sample (help·info)

The palatal nasal is a type of consonant, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ɲ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J. The IPA symbol is a lowercase letter n with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bottom of the left stem of the letter. Compare n and ɲ. The symbol ɲ 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 ŋ, the symbol for the velar nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem. In languages influenced by Spanish, this sound is represented with the letter eñe (ñ).

Features

Features of the palatal nasal:

• Its manner of articulation is stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
• Its place of articulation is palatal which means it is articulated with the middle or back part of the tongue raised against the hard palate.
• 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

References

Bibliography

• Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Ana Ma. Fernández-Planas & Josefina Carrera-Sabaté (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255-259

See also

• List of phonetics topics