Nasalization

There are occasional languages, such as in Palantla Chinantec, where vowels seem to exhibit three contrastive degrees of nasality: oral e.g. [e] vs lightly nasalized [ẽ] vs heavily nasalized [e͌],[3][4] although Ladefoged and Maddieson believe that the lightly nasalized vowels are best described as oro-nasal diphthongs.[5] Note that Ladefoged and Maddieson's transcription of heavy nasalization with a double tilde might be confused with the extIPA adoption of that diacritic for velopharyngeal frication.

Nasalized versions of other consonant sounds also exist but are much rarer than either nasal occlusives or nasal vowels. The Middle Chinese consonant 日 ([ȵʑ]; [ʐ] in modern Standard Chinese) has an odd history; for example, it has evolved into [ʐ] and [ɑɻ] (or [ɻ] and [ɚ] respectively, depending on accents) in Standard Chinese; [z]/[ʑ] and [n] in Hokkien; [z]/[ʑ] and [n]/[n̠ʲ] while borrowed into Japan. It seems likely that it was once a nasalized fricative, perhaps a palatal [ʝ̃].

In Coatzospan Mixtec, fricatives and affricates are nasalized before nasal vowels even when they are voiceless. In the Hupa, the velar nasal /ŋ/ often has the tongue not make full contact, resulting in a nasalized approximant, [ɰ̃]. That is cognate with a nasalized palatal approximant [ȷ̃] in other Athabaskan languages.

In Umbundu, phonemic /ṽ/ contrasts with the (allophonically) nasalized approximant [w̃] and so is likely to be a true fricative rather than an approximant. In Old and Middle Irish, the lenited ⟨m⟩ was a nasalized bilabial fricative [β̃].[6]

Ganza[7] has a phonemic nasalized glottal stop [ʔ̃] while Sundanese has it allophonically; nasalized stops can occur only with pharyngeal articulation or lower, or they would be simple nasals.[8] Nasal flaps are common allophonically. Many West African languages have a nasal flap [ɾ̃] (or [n̆]) as an allophone of /ɾ/ before a nasal vowel; voiced retroflex nasal flaps are common intervocalic allophones of /ɳ/ in South Asian languages.

A nasal trill [r̃] has been described from some dialects of Romanian, and is posited as an intermediate historical step in rhotacism. However, the phonetic variation of the sound is considerable, and it is not clear how frequently it is actually trilled.[9] Some languages contrast /r, r̃/ like Toro-tegu Dogon[10] and Inor. A nasal lateral has been reported for some languages, Nzema language contrasts /l, l̃/.[11]

Other languages, such as the Khoisan languages of Khoekhoe and Gǀui, as well as several of the !Kung languages, include nasal click consonants. Nasal clicks are typically with a nasal or superscript nasal preceding the consonant (for example, velar-dental ⟨ŋ͡ǀ⟩ or ⟨ᵑǀ⟩ and uvular-dental ⟨ɴ͡ǀ⟩ or ⟨ᶰǀ⟩).[12] Nasalized laterals such as [‖̃] are easy to produce but rare or nonexistent as phonemes; they may appear phonemically in languages such as Zulu. Often when /l/ is nasalized, it becomes [n].