Re: voiceless nasal consonants

On Saturday, December 18, 2004, at 09:24 , # 1 wrote:

> I was just talking to someone changing each voiced consonants for the
> voiceless equivalent (b=p, g=k, d=t) and I thought about the fact that I
> didn't know how was pronounced voiceless nasals.
>
> after I remarked that I don't even know and I've never heard about a
> language using such sounds.
Voiceless nasals do occur in English, but only as allophones of the normal
voiced ones; for example, in the words _small_ and _snail_ the /m/ and /n/
  are de-voiced after the initial /s/.

> Does someone has knowledge about a tongue using voiceless nasals?
I'm told that intial |hn| in Icelandic is voiceless [n_0], and it is
thought that Old English |hn| was the same sound. I have also been told
that Burmese and some native American languages posses voiceless nasals -
but I know no details.

Some books/ sites say that Welsh |mh|, |nh| and |ngh| are voiceless nasals;
  they are not. They are /m/, /n/ and /N/ followed by /h/.

> I've been able to pronounce some but I've been unable to pronouce clearly
> a
> difference between voiced and voiceless labiodental, retroflex, palatal
> and
> velar nasals
>
> So I imagine voiceless nasals must be billabial or
> "dento-alveo-postalveolar"
Not necessarily so. Any nasal sound can be pronounced voiceless.

> Are there natlangs where it exists?
Yes, see above. There was some discussion about this on Conlang in
November - look in the archives.

Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]