Voiceless uvular nasal

A voiceless uvular nasal is a rare sound used in only a few spoken languages. This special sound is shown by the symbol ⟨ɴ̥⟩ in the International Phonetic Alphabet. The symbol mixes the letter for the voiced uvular nasal and a diacritic that shows it is made without voice, making it interesting in the study of sounds people use when talking.

Features

A voiceless uvular nasal is a special sound used in only a few languages. It is made by closing the back of the tongue against a small piece of flesh at the back of the mouth, called the uvula, and letting air flow through the nose instead of the mouth. This sound does not make the voice box vibrate, so it is called "voiceless."

This type of sound is created using the muscles of the chest and belly to push air. The air flows down the middle of the tongue, not around the sides.

Occurrence

Some languages have a special sound called the voiceless uvular nasal. This sound is very rare and not used in many languages. It is shown with a special symbol in language studies.

Voiceless pre-uvular nasal

The Mishongnovi dialect of the Hopi language has a special sound called a voiceless post-velar or pre-uvular nasal. This sound is made a little more forward in the mouth than a typical voiceless uvular nasal, but not as forward as a voiceless velar nasal. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a special symbol for this sound, but it can be written as ⟨ɴ̟̊⟩, ⟨ŋ̠̊⟩, or ⟨ŋ̊˗⟩.

This sound is made by closing off the airflow in the mouth and letting it escape through the nose. It is made between the position of velar consonants and uvular consonants, without any vibration of the vocal cords. The air is pushed out using the muscles of the chest and belly, like most sounds we make.