Nasenlaute

Nasenlaute, also known as nasal consonants, are speech sounds produced with air escaping through the nose rather than the mouth. This is achieved by closing the lips or the soft palate against the oral cavity, forcing the airflow through the nasal passage. In phonetics, they are classified as consonants because they involve an obstruction in the vocal tract.

The most common nasenlaute in many languages are the voiced bilabial nasal /m/, produced with both lips together, the voiced alveolar nasal /n/, produced with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge, and the voiced velar nasal /ŋ/, as in the English word "sing," produced with the back of the tongue against the soft palate. These sounds are produced with vocal cord vibration, making them voiced.

Some languages also feature voiceless nasenlaute, though these are less common. For instance, in some indigenous languages of North America, one can find voiceless versions of /m/ and /n/. The specific set of nasenlaute present in a language, and their phonemic status, varies greatly. They play a crucial role in distinguishing words, as evidenced by minimal pairs like "map" and "nap" in English. Their acoustic properties are distinct due to the resonance within the nasal cavity, contributing to the overall soundscape of spoken language.