Voiceless uvular nasal

A voiceless uvular nasal is a rare type of consonantal sound, used in few spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɴ̥⟩, a combination of the letter for the voiced uvular nasal and a diacritic indicating voicelessness.

Features of a voiceless uvular nasal:

• Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Because the consonant is also nasal, the blocked airflow is redirected through the nose.
• Its place of articulation is uvular, which means it is articulated with the back of the tongue (the dorsum) at the uvula.
• Its phonation is un-voiced, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is a nasal consonant, which means air is exclusively allowed to escape through the nose for nasal stops; otherwise, in addition to through the mouth.
• It is a median consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream down the midline of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

There is also a voiceless post-velar or pre-uvular nasal in the Mishongnovi dialect of the Hopi language, which is articulated slightly more front compared with the place of articulation of the prototypical voiceless uvular nasal, though not as front as the prototypical voiceless velar nasal. The International Phonetic Alphabet does not have a separate symbol for that sound, though it can be transcribed as ⟨ɴ̟̊⟩ (advanced ⟨ɴ̥⟩), ⟨ŋ̠̊⟩ or ⟨ŋ̊˗⟩ (both symbols denote a retracted ⟨ŋ̊⟩).

• Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Because the consonant is also nasal, the blocked airflow is redirected through the nose.
• Its place of articulation is post-velar, also called retracted velar, backed velar, pre-uvular, advanced uvular or front(ed-)uvular, which means it is articulated between the position of velar consonants and uvular consonants.
• Its phonation is un-voiced, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is a nasal consonant, which means air is exclusively allowed to escape through the nose for nasal stops; otherwise, in addition to through the mouth.
• It is a median consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream down the midline of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

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