Voiceless retroflex nasal

The voiceless retroflex nasal is an extremely rare type of consonantal sound, used in very few spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ɳ̊, a combination of the letter for the voiced retroflex nasal and a diacritic indicating voicelessness.

Voiceless retroflex nasal
ɳ̊
ɳ̥

Features

Features of the voiceless palatal nasal:

  • Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Because the consonant is also nasal, the blocked airflow is redirected through the nose.
  • Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
  • It is a nasal consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the nose, either exclusively (nasal stops) or in addition to through the mouth.
  • It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.

Occurrence

It is found in Iaai.[1]

gollark: But the obvious meaning is just abandoned projects.
gollark: Well, it might mean that your project needs to be updated over time as things change.
gollark: Palaiologos actually finishes projects.
gollark: "Code is never done, only abandoned" is more gollark.
gollark: Is it? It seems fairly generic motivational stuff of some kind.

See also

References

  1. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, vol. 53–55, p. 212.
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