A voiced velar nasal, also known as eng, engma, or agma (from Greek '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 . The IPA symbol is similar to , the symbol for the retroflex nasal, which has a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem, and to , the symbol for the palatal nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the left stem.

While almost all languages have and as phonemes, is rarer.. The oral counterparts are found together in almost all languages Half of the 469 languages surveyed in 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. The Láá Láá Bwamu language is one of the few languages that has the sound as its only nasal consonant. In many languages that do not have the velar nasal as a phoneme, such as most of the Romance languages, it occurs as an allophone of 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, , can be realized as either or .

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

Some languages have a pre-velar nasal,Instead of "pre-velar", it can be called "advanced velar", "fronted velar", "front-velar", "palato-velar", "post-palatal", "retracted palatal" or "backed palatal". 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 a post-velar nasal,Instead of "post-velar", it can be called "retracted velar", "backed velar", "pre-uvular", "advanced uvular" or "fronted uvular". 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 a voiced velar nasal:

Occurrence Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Albanian 'because' Aleut / 'five' Arabic Hejazi / 'brazier' Allophone of before velar stops. See Hejazi Arabic phonology Armenian Eastern / 'friend' Allophone of before velar consonants Assamese / 'color' Asturian 'no' Allophone of in word-final position, either before consonants other than velar stops or vowel-beginning words or before a pause. Bambara 'guitar' Bashkir / / 'one thousand' Basque 'leg' Bengali / 'color' Bulgarian / 'thin' Burmese 'chilli' Cantonese / 'raise' See Cantonese phonology Catalan 'blood' See Catalan phonology Cebuano 'why' Chamorro 'duck' Chukchi / 'three' Czech 'tank' See Czech phonology Dinka 'who' Danish 'song' See Danish phonology Dutch 'fear' See Dutch phonology Eastern Min / 'suspect' English sing 'sing' Restricted to the syllable coda. See English phonology Faroese 'meadow' Fijian 'child' Finnish 'cloth' Occurs in native vocabulary only intervocally (as a geminate) and before . See Finnish phonology French Standard 'camping' Occurs mainly in words borrowed from English or Chinese. See French phonology Southern France 'bread' For many speakers, acts as a substitute for the nasalization of the preceding vowel, which may still be partially nasal. It is one of the most typical traits of varieties of French influenced by an Occitan substrate. Galician 'one' (f.) Gan / 'tooth' German 'long' See Standard German phonology Georgian / 'egoism/greed' Allophone of before and in colloquial or fast speech. Greek / 'Stress' See Modern Greek phonology Hakka Sixian / 'I' Hebrew Standard / 'English language' Allophone of before velar stops. See Modern Hebrew phonology Sephardi / 'Ayin' See Sephardi Hebrew Hiligaynon 'crazy/mentally unstable' Hindustani Hindi / / 'color' See Hindustani phonology Urdu / Ho 'big' Hungarian 'shirt' Allophone of before . See Hungarian phonology Icelandic 'tunnel' See Icelandic phonology Ilocano 'to chew' Inuktitut / 'dog' Inuvialuktun 'snores' Irish 'their voice' Occurs word-initially as a result of the consonantal mutation eclipsis. See Irish phonology Italian 'also' Allophone of before and . See Italian phonology Itelmen 'one' Japanese Standard / 'the South Pole' See Japanese phonology Eastern dialects / 'key' Javanese stink Additional caused by vowel after sounding Jin Yuci / 'I' Kagayanen 'older sister' Karelian 'fishing rod' Occurs only before , and . Karen Eastern Pwo 'enter into a heated argument' Western Pwo 'stupid; not very intelligent' Kazakh / / 'thousand' Kyrgyz / / Ket / 'to damn' Kharia 'tongue' A pervasive rising tone related to stress is found in monosyllabic stems. See Anderson (2014) for discussion. Khasi 'honey' Khmer See Khmer phonology Korean / 'window frost' See Korean phonology Kurdish Northern / 'war' See Kurdish phonology Central / Southern Luganda 'hornbill' Luxembourgish 'nobody' See Luxembourgish phonology Macedonian / 'English' Occurs as an allophone of before and . Malay Malaysian and Indonesian / 'wake up' Kelantan-Pattani 'here' See Kelantan-Pattani Malay Terengganu 'chicken' See Terengganu Malay Malayalam / /مٰاۼَ 'mango' See Malayalam phonology Mandarin Standard / 'Beijing' Restricted to the syllable coda. See Mandarin phonology Sichuanese / 'I' Marathi / 'colour' See Marathi phonology Mari / 'human' Minangkabau 'nonsense' Mongolian 'sky' Nepali / 'nail' See Nepali phonology Nganasan / 'mouth' Nivkh / 'seven' North Frisian Mooring 'stove' Northern Min / 'outside' Northern Sámi Eastern Finnmark 'behind' Western Finnmark 'many' has merged with in Western Finnmark, except before velar stops. Norwegian 'hallway' See Norwegian phonology Odia / 'and' Okinawan 'to' Allophone of before velars, before consonants in an onset cluster, and also word-finally in some dialects. Ottoman Turkish / [jeŋi] 'new' Panjabi Gurmukhi / 'color' Shahmukhi / Persian Iranian Allophone of before velar plosives. See Persian phonology Pipil 'later' Polish 'bank' Allophone of before ; post-palatal before . See Polish phonology Portuguese 'mango' Occurs occasionally in slow, careful speech, as an allophone of before and , when the speaker does not delete the by fusing it with the preceding vowel. Occitan Provençal 'wine' Rapanui 'bay' Sometimes written in Rapanui Romanian Țara Moților Transylvanian 'dog' Corresponds to [n] in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology Standard 'long' Allophone of before . See Romanian phonology Samoan 'language' Serbo-Croatian / 'pause' Allophone of before . See Serbo-Croatian phonology Seri 'Seri people' Shona 'traditional healer' Slovak 'bank' Slovene 'tank' Southern Min Hokkien / 'yellow' Teochew / Spanish All dialects 'Sunday' Allophone of before velar consonants. See Spanish phonology Galician Spanish, Andalusian, Canarian, Andean, and most Caribbean dialects 'tar' Allophone of in word-final position regardless of what follows. Swahili / 'cow' Swedish Standard 'nothing' See Swedish phonology Southern Västerbotten 'knife' Tagalog 'opening one's mouth' Tamil / / يِࢳࢴࣣي 'here' Telugu 'literature' Allophone of anuswara when followed by velar stop Tibetan Standard / 'I' Thai / 'work' Nuer - Thok Nath 'who?' or 'Is who?' Tongan 'man' Tuamotuan 'sky' Tundra Nenets / 'head' Tupi 'to make' See Tupian phonology Turkish 'fire' Allophone of /n/ before /k/ and /g/ Turkmen / 'thousand' Tyap 'child' Uyghur / 'thousand' Uzbek / 'thousand' Venetian 'hand' Vietnamese 'ivory'See Vietnamese phonology Welsh 'between' West Frisian 'king' Wu / 'five' Xhosa 'hadada ibis' Xiang / 'to boil' Yi / 'I' Yup'ik 'animal' Zapotec Tilquiapan 'neck' Word-final allophone of lenis

See also Index of phonetics articles Eng (letter)

Notes

References

External links