Nasal Sound

You may be surprised to learn that your nose plays a vital role in speech. After all, air comes out of your mouth when you speak, right? Try this, though: hum a [m] sound to yourself, and then hold your nose closed. The sound stops! The sound [m] is an example of a nasal consonant. Nasal Consonants and other nasal sounds are present in English and most other languages worldwide.

What is the Meaning of a Nasal Sound?

The sounds that involve airflow through the nose are categorized as nasal sounds.

If you make a [k] or [g] sound, you can feel the body of your tongue come in contact with your velum. This structure is raised during non-nasal (oral) sounds to block air from coming out of the nose. During nasal sounds, it's lowered to let air flow freely through the nose. If you pay special attention to what's happening in the back of your mouth when you produce a [b] versus a [m] sound, you can feel your velum moving to control airflow through the nasal cavity.

Fig. 1 - The velum raises and lowers itself to control airflow through the nasal cavity.

Examples of Nasal Sounds in Speech

Nasal sounds are present in most of the world's languages. They primarily take the form of nasal Consonants; some languages also utilize nasalized Vowels.

Nasal Consonants

The term nasal consonant generally refers to nasal stops. These are the nasal stops in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Like oral stops, nasal stops involve a constriction in the vocal tract that completely cuts off airflow through the mouth. The only difference is that nasal stops allow air to flow through the nose. If you try to produce a nasal stop and airflow to the nose is blocked for any reason, it will come out as an oral stop. That's why, when you have a stuffy nose, "Mom, I'm not feeling good" turns into "Bob, I'b dot feelig good."

Fig. 2 - When you're congested, air can't flow through your nose, forcing nasal stops to come out as oral stops.

Nasal stops are almost always voiced, meaning they involve vocal fold vibration. Some languages incorporate voiceless nasals; these are marked with the voiceless diacritic: [m̥, ɱ̥, n̥, ɳ̥, ɲ̥, ŋ̥, ɴ̥].

Nasalized Vowels

Nasalized Vowels are produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to flow from the nose and mouth. Some languages, like French, utilize nasal Vowels phonemically. For example, the vowel in the French word centre [sãtʁ] is the nasalized vowel [ã].

It's also possible to nasalize oral consonants. The International Phonetic Alphabet marks nasalized sounds with the nasal diacritic [˜]. The vowel [a], when nasalized, is written as [ã].

The Nasal Sounds in English

There are three nasal stops in English: the bilabial [m], produced with a constriction at the lips; Alveolar [n], produced with a constriction at the Alveolar ridge; and Velar [ŋ], produced with a constriction at the velum.

The [m] and [n] sounds are written in English exactly like their IPA transcriptions. The velar [ŋ] represents the ng sound at the end of words like sing and bring. The symbol itself looks like an n and g combined.

Examples of Words With Nasal Sounds

The other nasal sounds on the IPA chart are more difficult for English speakers to identify because they are not phonemically present in English. They are observable, though, as phonemes in other languages or as allophones.

For example, the general American Phoneme /p/ has three allophones based on their surroundings: the aspirated [p^h], as in pattern; the unaspirated [p], as in apple, and the not-audibly-released [p̚], as in tap.

Here is a summary of the nasal stops that don't appear as phonemes in English. Some are allophones in English or phonemes in other languages.

• The labiodental nasal [ɱ] is produced with the lower lip touching the upper teeth, similar to the labiodental fricative [f]. This sound rarely appears as a phoneme but is present in many languages as an allophone. In English, the [m] in symphony often assimilates to the following [f], resulting in [ˈsɪɱfəni].
• The palatal nasal [ɲ] is produced with the blade and body of the tongue touching the hard palate at the roof of the mouth. The placement is similar to the palatal approximate [j], as in yard and yam. This sound is a phoneme in several languages, including Spanish. The ñ in words like Español [e̞späˈɲol] is a palatal nasal.
• The uvular nasal [ɴ] is pronounced with the back of the tongue touching the uvula at the back of the mouth. This sound is also rare as a phoneme but appears in many languages as an allophone. For example, the phoneme /n/ in the Dutch word aangenaam (pleasant) is pronounced as a uvular nasal: [ˈaːɴχəˌnaːm].

Retroflex Nasal

The last nasal consonant to discuss is the retroflex nasal. Retroflex sounds are produced by bending or curling the tongue back so that the tip of the tongue touches the alveolar ridge and hard palate.

Fig. 3 - A retroflex nasal is produced by curling the tongue back to the alveolar ridge.

Although they don't appear in English, retroflex sounds occur in many languages, including Malayalam, Punjabi, Hindi, Tamil, Norwegian, and Vietnamese. The Malayalam word കന്നി [kʌɳɳi], meaning "link in a chain," includes the retroflex nasal sound.¹