Talk:Voiced velar nasal

Sound sample incorrect

The recorded sound for Velar Nasal does not sound as I expected it to be. I may be wrong, but when I make my mouth configuration for K and try to make the nasal, it does not come anywhere near the dental N. Velar nasal is common in Pali. It is similar to the 'ng' in 'sing' but stronger and behaves like a stop. (e.g. Pali: sañgha -- the enye, ñ, used does not stand for Spanish sound of ñ and 'gh' is the aspirated g. The word is pronounced like sung-gh[schwa]).

Thank you.

JC 12:30, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

The given sample doesn't sound right... ugh-nah?Frozen Mists 14:20, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

huh? ng in sing is velar nasal!--88.101.76.122 15:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

yeah, the sample sound is really two sounds not just ng... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Youbetterwork (talk • contribs) 09:34, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

This is the fact with all samples because if it was just "ng", you wouldn't hear it clearly enough. --2.245.87.193 (talk) 15:32, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Not in Latin only...

Swedish also uses -gn- to spell [ŋn], under two conditions. First, the /g/ and /n/ must be part of the same morpheme; second, the /gn/ sequence must not be the result of a dropped vowel in the underlying word. (I'm willing to add suitable examples to the Swedish phonology article, if enough readers are interested.) ISNorden 23:43, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Central consonant

The velar nasal is a nasal consonant, which excludes the escape of air through the mouth altogether. Linguini 16:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I reverted your edit but I see your point. Whatever change we make to this page in regards to features, we should make to the rest of the nasal consonant pages. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:16, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

There was a small mistake in spelling the word "angma" (not "agma", as it was earlier). I've corrected it according to Goeffrey Pullum's & William Ladusaw's 'Phonetic Symbol Guide' (1. ed., p. 104). Piotr

French

In French the velar nasal occurs only (I think) in words from other languages (like english), as in "camping", "parking"... Is it correct to include them in the article as "french words"? Thank you and sorry for the possible mistakes of english (I'm italian :-P) -- Gwenaeth —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.156.52.125 (talk) 13:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC).

Yes because French speakers don't pronounce them as a velar with a homorganic nasal or as any other nasal that they have. Also notice that the meaning is not quite directly transferred in the example on the page. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 15:45, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok (what do you mean exactly with "not quite directly transferred"? I don't understand :-P). In any case, you can also found the palatal pronunciation [ɲ] (es. [kãpiɲ] for "camping"). Bye --213.156.52.125 17:56, 7 February 2007 (UTC) Gwenaeth

Sorry, that was a bit unclear. What I mean is that, while in English parking means the act of making one's car stationary, in French it means the place where one does this. It's an obvious loanword but the French have made it their own so to speak. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:01, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, it's clear! Thank you --Gwenaeth 19:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

angma

how is angma a ref to greek —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.190.123.204 (talk) 22:30, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

English Cluster

The example and my dictionary give the word sing as one final consonant, [ŋ]. However, I pronounce it as a cluster of [ŋg], thus [ŋ] never occurs by itself. I'm in America, and have a General American accent, so why does my dictionary say this is so? How common is it to say it as just one consonant? --65.34.193.54 (talk) 03:35, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I can't say how common it is to actually say [sɪŋɡ], but it's definitely an aberrance from the standard, maybe a local one. Dictionaries give the standard pronunciation, which clearly is [sɪŋ]. Do you know any other people who pronounce the word in this way? I personally haven't heard it pronounced as such, before. — N-true (talk) 09:54, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

[Logged in now] Oddly, my parents don't say it, and nobody on the local news stations does the same. A few of my friends do say it as such, and sometimes I only say it as [ŋ] when talking really fast. Some words my dictionary list as [ŋg], such as finger, and I'm sure that most people say the [g] in English. In English phonology: an introduction, Giegerich lists [ŋg] as a cluster in some accents on page 36. --Moopstick (talk) 23:37, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Example split?

Given the unusual status of [ŋ] as a consonant that occurs widely, but commonly only as an allophone or with defective distribution, what would you think about splitting the table to three or four sections:

1. Languages where /ŋ/ is a perfectly normal phoneme; Fijian, Swahili etc.
2. Languages where /ŋ/ is a phoneme of limited distribution, eg. English (cf. WALS:Distribution of initial velar nasal)
3. Languages where /ŋ/ is a marginal phoneme at best, eg. French (not sure if this is well-defined)
4. Languages where [ŋ] is only an allophone of nasals preceding velars.

--Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 11:04, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

• Strong Agree, I've been thinking of such a thing myself. It would greatly improve readability, otherwise the most important aspect of these tables remains opaque. Such long tables would only be useful if they convey the contrastiveness of the phone in the various languages orderly. --JorisvS (talk) 11:38, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

A split table sounds like a good idea, but I'm not so sure about the categories. Doesn't phonemicity depend partly on analysis (would we put German in group 2 or group 4?) What about languages where [ŋ] is an allophone in other contexts? Are there any other sounds that are like this? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 12:18, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Good points. For German I'd say go with what German phonology says, so #2. If there are German (or English) dialects that fall under that, they could get their own slot. Allophonic [ŋ] in other contexts is bit more of a dilemma, but does that occur anywhere else than Greek/Latin (and loanwords from those)? If we were to merge #3 with #2, such cases could be also included.

For other phonemes with equally odd distribution, lack of initial /r/ is also a widespread phenomenon, though most of the examples I kno are historical (Proto-Japanese, -Uralic, -IE, -Turkic, etc.) It is also fairly frequent that /h/ does not occur in the syllable coda. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 20:50, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Your mention of English brings up another complication. Sometimes one dialect of a language will have the sound in one category and sometimes in another. Rather than split them between those four categories, what if we just did a maximum limited distribution/minimum limited distribution split (since, of course, there's a gradient here)? I want to be careful also not to try to pidgeonhole all information into table presentations (something that is a great risk in these sorts of pages). I feel like the issue of phonemicity is so nuanced that making tables that categorize examples like that might be oversimplistic. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:19, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, this proposed table division shouldn't be the primary means to show the distinction's existence, the point is to make the data more accessible. In conjunction with any split we should also explain the split in text.

So where do you propose we draw the line? At least initial / not initial is unambiguous, but this can be illustrated just fine with examples. I was initially the most concerned about group 4 (and that part of 3 where there's fluctuation between [ŋ] and [ŋg], [ŋk]). I think that includes Czech, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, standard Japanese, Macedonian, Modern Greek, Polish, Seri, Slovene, Spanish (and Catalan, French). --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 16:57, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

So far we only know of restrictions where the velar nasal appears only before velars, doesn't appear in the syllable onset, and between vowels (Japanese). I think we can operate with this right now and address other constraints as they come (if they come). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 17:10, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Oppose as all other articles about sounds are structured as the article stands now. Additionally, I would list English in the first group of those four; just because the velar nasal is restricted to the syllable coda does not mean that it is not normal; if you cannot say it then you cannot say any present participle or a host of other words. Interchangeable|talk to me 22:44, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Hebrew

I'm pretty sure this consonant does not exist in Hebrew. Nun is always n, even when coming before Kaf, Quf or Gimel. Maybe there are a few who have difficulty moving their tongue, but it's certainly not common. TFighterPilot (talk) 11:30, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've removed Hebrew. AFAIK, It's fairly unusual crosslinguistically for nasals to not assimilate to the velar position like that, but it's also not unheard of. It could be the case that, as in Russian, it occurs only in loanwords. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 20:03, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

It was re-added in edit 21:49, 2 May 2012. I agree it should be removed. For what it is worth. 1) in the Webster's New World Hebrew (1992)dictionary's pronunciation guide, this nj sound, or approximation, is not listed. 2) I just re-watched an interview* where a native Hebrew speaker used a hard G sound when saying the word 'anglit.' I checked that particular word because the current wiki entry list anglit as the case for why it is claimed that nj exists in Hebrew. And ever if a sizable number of native Hebrew speakers pronounce anglit as 'anj|lit', one word is an exception. I.E. If a native English speaker was to properly pronounce Khet or Kaf in the correct way when saying a proper name, it would not mean that that phenom was standard in English. Is there any publication from the Hebrew Language Academy on this subject?

• Yes, I know what you're thinking; quite solid proof, I'm sorry to say. :-D — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.182.241.250 (talk) 02:07, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Syllable Coda

I think there may be one exception to English's restriction to the syllable coda: <singing>. Interchangeable|talk to me 17:25, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

/sɪŋ.ɪŋ/. How is that an exception? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 18:54, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

The syllable divide is after /ɪ/ in my dialect. Interchangeable|talk to me 00:47, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

How do you establish that? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 02:48, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

"Independent experience and testing" don't count for much here, but I can provide a few references:

• [1]: At 0:36 the held /ɪ/ is clearly the end of the syllable, and the next begins with /ŋ/.
• [2]: Not too sure about 0:06, but his many "singing in the rain"s all divide on the /ɪ/. However, these are both sung sound samples where the tendency may be to end the syllable with a vowel.
• [3]: The official audio file from Wiktionary. I'm not too sure about this one; I can make the velar nasal switch between onset and coda like the famous Rubin vase. I can't really vouch for more audio files as "singing" is the only entry on this page that has been recorded. Interchangeable|talk to me 19:58, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

That first video is cute. But providing audio clips doesn't really provide anything objective. What criteria does one use to establish if an intervocalic consonant is in the coda or the onset? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 21:14, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I suppose there are none, and this should remain unmentioned in the article. Interchangeable|talk to me 22:42, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I just wanted to say that Joe Penna is not a native English speaker, and that our native language does not allow nasals in the syllable coda. Lguipontes (talk) 13:48, 3 September 2012 (UTC) (what an idiot I am, just realised he shouted a phrase in Portuguese there, sorry guys, I was being silly, not obnoxious -.-)

Brazilian Portuguese and northern European Portuguese

In Brazilian Portuguese at least, the end of nasal vowels may become [ŋ ~ ɰ̃] before velar stops and sibilants (among some other sounds in other environments, I think the name of it is heterosyllabic), especially when the nasal vowel is stressed (some IPA for Portuguese transcriptions here have final diphthongized nasal vowel [Ṽj] in the middle of words... It is actually [ɯ̯], a sound we aren't used to so that editors don't have nothing to compare to, not [i̯ ~ ɪ̯]), except for when the vowel in question is rounded so that we have it as [Ṽ(w)] (e.g. cônsul [ˈkõw̆suw]) instead (similar to monosyllables, where we got [ẽː ~ ĩː ~ Ṽj], [õː ~ ũː ~ Ṽw]). That is why I am against transcribing those glides here except in some cases, since in general the phonemic nasal vowel symbols are supposed to represent all its allophones, including those diphthongizations.

Even more, European Portuguese dialects with a great deal of influence from Galician have, as the latter language, [ŋ] at the end of words that in Brazil have homogenic nasal vowels.

If proper sources are found, is this information supposed to be dealt here or in the velar approximant page? 177.65.49.210 (talk) 10:06, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd think here would be better, though it might depend on the source used. Either way, it sounds like good information to put at Portuguese phonology. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 16:30, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

English phoneme?

This is not an English phoneme. It is an allophone of n before a G or K. "Stink" and "sting" may be [stɪŋ] and [stɪŋk], but they are percieved as /stɪng/ and /stɪnk/. It can also be heard in "the train goes by". Why do dictionaries consider this to be a sound, rather than a sound variation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ticklewickleukulele (talk • contribs) 00:09, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

then how do you explain singer/finger contrast? by your analysis they both have /nɡ/ medially, which isn't the case (there is a contrast!): they have /ŋ/ and /ŋɡ/ respectively. Calling the first a bare /n/ falls into some minimal pairs (e.g. sinner). Double sharp (talk) 10:22, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and also: your example is across word boundaries, and not everyone might assimilate the nasal in that case. Double sharp (talk) 14:45, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Double sharp, American English does not usually contrast the ⟨ng⟩ in "singer" and "finger", but rather both words rhyme, and both pronounced with a /ŋ g/ (usually) or /n g/ (common variant). American English tends to always pronounce the ⟨g⟩ in words containing ⟨ng⟩ though the strength of the ⟨g⟩ may vary between dialects. For example, in a few African-American dialects, in medial positions, the ⟨g⟩ can be very soft, but in dialects where ⟨g⟩ is not pronounced at all, the ⟨n⟩ is often dropped as well. However, most American English dialects pronounce the ⟨n⟩ and ⟨g⟩ more equally while a number emphasize the ⟨g⟩ much more strongly, some to the point of even adding a schwa sound after when in word coda. Notably, the ⟨n⟩ of ⟨ng⟩ can be pronounced /ŋ/ or /n/ depending on the dialect and the word. When the ⟨g⟩ is dropped in some dialects, it is usually only when word coda and the ⟨n⟩ will be pronounced /n/ instead of /ŋ/. Referencing American dictionaries complicates the issue because they have long used their own American systems for pronunciation (not IPA) and several of them have used ⟨ŋ⟩ to represent both /ŋg/ and /ng/ but not /ŋ/ (/ŋ/ would be represented there either by ⟨n⟩ or "n" with a diacritic). Someone coming from IPA could easily mistake these American ⟨ŋ⟩ to mean /ŋ/, but it is usually /ŋg/ and /ng/ (the old American systems don't usually distinguish between the two). Additionally, each system is usually the creation of that particular dictionary, so one dictionary may use similar notations but with different pronunciations intended. In contrast, it can be a pain when educating American college students the distinction between /ŋ/ and /ŋg/ as many tend to want to incorrectly default into thinking that IPA ⟨ŋ⟩ is /ŋg/ even after you have corrected them a dozen times. — al-Shimoni (talk) 07:49, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

@Imeriki al-Shimoni: With all due respect you seem seriously in need of familiarizing yourself with English phonetics and phonology. /ŋ/ does indeed derive from /nɡ/ in sequence (phonetically [ŋɡ]) but today very few dialects of English, such as those spoken in Birmingham and New York City, produce [ɡ] after [ŋ] in syllable-final positions and thus lack a /ŋ/ phoneme—see Phonological history of English consonant clusters#Final cluster reductions. ⟨ng⟩ is often pronounced as [n] in informal registers, but never as [nɡ]—otherwise it would be a significant exception to the phonotactic rule of English that allows no heterorganic consonant to follow a nasal in codas (there are warmth, dreamt, etc., but they are nonetheless pronounced with epenthetic [p] more often than not). "ng" and "ŋ" used by American dictionaries are of course equivalent to the IPA /ŋ/: see [4] and [5], which in fact uses the singer–finger contrast as an illustration. Nardog (talk) 08:17, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Nasal velar approximant

I wonder how often it becomes a nasal velar approximant intervocalically. I've heard that happen in Netherlandic Dutch, in more than one speaker. Example: 'lange' (inflected form of 'lang', meaning 'long') was pronounced [ˈɫɑɰ̃ə]. Though I think I heard it only before a schwa... It's not so weird after all, it's just a kind of lenition (nasal stop -> nasal approximant). --Helloworlditsme (talk) 05:51, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Chinese examples

Can we tone down the list of Chinese examples somehow? It looks sort of disruptive, as if trying to get in multiple examples. Perhaps switching to one or two characters where the presence of /ŋ/ is widespread, and only using other examples if those fail. E.g. "I" as the default case, something else for varieties that do not have /ŋ/ in the word?

Alternately, breaking the entries into their own lines entirely would also make the formatting less intrusive. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 16:13, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

"N," listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect N, and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 March 10#N, until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 15:46, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

...also called "agma"

By whom, really, to the point that we need to have it in boldface in the opening sentence? LJD Richardson wrote in 1941 that "Agma, as a name has suffered a most undeserved obscuration", and I don't see that things have changed much since then ;) –Austronesier (talk) 19:56, 1 June 2022 (UTC)