A voiced retroflex nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is .
Like all the retroflex consonants, the IPA symbol is formed by adding a rightward-pointing hook (right-tail) extending from the bottom of , the letter used for the corresponding alveolar consonant. It is similar to , the letter for the palatal nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook (left-tail) extending from the bottom of the left stem, and to , the letter for the velar nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem.
Features
Features of a voiced retroflex nasal:
Occurrence Language Word IPA Meaning Notes Bengali Rare; occurs in the extreme western dialects Enindhilyagwa 'snake' Faroese 'eagle' Hindi / 'cold' Kannada / 'dam' Khanty Eastern 'large' Present since Proto-Khanty. Merges with /n/ in Southern Khanty and in some subdialects of Eastern (e.g. Jugan, Pim) and Northern (e.g. Nizyam, Sherkaly, Obdorsk). Northern Malayalam / 'jaw' Marathi / 'arrow' Often realized as a flap in intervocalic and word-final positions. See Marathi phonology Nepali / 'egg' See Nepali phonology Norwegian 'yarn' See Norwegian phonology Odia / 'myna bird' Pashto / 'Attan' Punjabi / 'Purana' Scottish Gaelic Lewis 'hell' Dialectal realisation of .Sinhala ණය / ṇaya'debt'Rare, typically only in words with the letter . See Sinhala phonology Swedish Central Standard 'yarn' See Swedish phonology Tamil / 'male' See Tamil phonology Telugu / 'murmur' Occurs as allophone of anuswara when followed by Voiced retroflex plosives. Vietnamese 'you pay' Allophone of before in Saigon dialect. See Vietnamese phonology
See also Index of phonetics articles
Notes
References
External links