Nasalidade

Nasalidade refers to the quality of sound produced when air passes through the nose during speech. It is a phonological feature that distinguishes certain sounds, particularly vowels and some consonants, from their oral counterparts. In many languages, nasalization is a distinctive feature, meaning that changing a nasal sound to an oral sound can alter the meaning of a word. For example, in French, the vowel sound in "bon" (good) is nasal, while the vowel sound in "beau" (handsome) is oral, and these are different words.

The production of nasal sounds involves lowering the velum, the soft tissue at the back of the roof of the mouth, which allows air to escape through the nasal cavity. Oral sounds, conversely, are produced with the velum raised, blocking the nasal passage and directing airflow through the mouth. The nasal consonant sounds like 'm', 'n', and 'ng' are common examples found in many languages, including English.

The extent and perception of nasalidade can vary. Some languages have more prominent nasal vowels than others. In linguistics, nasalidade is often marked by a tilde (~) above the phonetic symbol representing the sound. The study of nasalidade is important in phonetics and phonology for understanding the sound systems of languages and for language acquisition and therapy.