Alveolar nasal

The alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar nasals is n, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is n.

There are few languages that lack this sound but have an m sound (e.g., Samoan). There are some languages (e.g., Rotokas) that lack both m and n.

[edit] Features

Features of the alveolar nasal:

Its manner of articulation is stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
Its place of articulation is alveolar, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, termed respectively apical and laminal.
Its phonation type is voiced, which means the vocal cords are vibrating during the articulation.
It is a nasal consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the nose.
It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Catalan		nen	[nen]	'boy'	See Catalan phonology
Czech		na	[na]	'on'	See Czech phonology
Dutch		nacht	[nɑxt]	'night'	See Dutch phonology
English		nice	[naɪs]	'nice'	See English phonology
Finnish		annan	[ɑnːɑn]	'I give'	See Finnish phonology
French		connexion	[kɔnɛksjɔ̃]	'connection'	See French phonology
Georgian		კანი	[ˈkʼɑni]^[1]	'skin'
German		Lanze	[lantsə]	'lance'	See German phonology
Greek		νάμα	[ˈnama]	'communion wine'	See Modern Greek phonology
Hindi		नया	[nəjaː]	'new'
Hungarian		nagyi	[nɒɟi]	'grandma'	See Hungarian phonology
Italian		nano	[ˈnano]	'dwarf'	See Italian phonology
Japanese		反対/hantai	[hantai]	'opposite'	See Japanese phonology
Korean		나/na	[na]	'I'	See Korean phonology
Ngwe	Mmockngie dialect	[nøɣə̀]		'sun'
Norwegian		mann	[mɑnː]	'man'	See Norwegian phonology
Pirahã		gíxai	[níʔàì]	'you'
Portuguese		nariz	[nɐˈɾis]	'nose'	See Portuguese phonology
Spanish^[2]		nada	[ˈnaða]	'nothing'	See Spanish phonology
Swedish		nod	[nuːd] (help·info)	'node'	See Swedish phonology
Turkish		neden	[ned̪en]	'reason'	See Turkish phonology

Martínez-Celdrán, Eugenio; Ana Ma. Fernández-Planas & Josefina Carrera-Sabaté (2003), "Castilian Spanish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33 (2): 255-259
Shosted, Ryan K. & Chikovani Vakhtang (2006), "Standard Georgian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36 (2): 255-264

Consonants (List, table)