Oralization

Oralization is a term used in linguistics to describe the process by which a sound or a segment that carries nasal resonance becomes fully oral. It can affect vowels, in which nasal vowels lose their nasalization and are realized as oral vowels, or it can affect consonants that are produced with nasal airflow and become oralized. Oralization is the counterpart of nasalization and is often discussed in phonetics and phonology, as well as in sociolinguistic and historical studies of sound change.

Mechanisms and conditioning of oralization vary by language and context. It may occur as a result of phonological reanalysis, regressive or progressive assimilation, or language contact with varieties that have less nasalization or different nasal consonant inventories. Oralization can be diachronic, part of a historical sound change, or synchronic, appearing as an allophonic or freer variation. The precise realization depends on the segment involved and the broader phonetic system of the language.

Terminology and scope can differ among sources. Some discussions treat oralization as specifically the loss of nasalization in vowels, while others use the term to cover broader shifts toward non-nasal articulation for affected segments. It is distinct from processes that increase nasalization or lead to hypernasality, which are described with separate terms.

Outside linguistics, oralization can also refer to making information or discourse oral rather than written, or to the promotion of spoken language in education and anthropology, where the term may relate to oral traditions or oral transmission.