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Prenasalized consonants are phonetics sequences of a nasal consonant and an obstruent (or occasionally a non-nasal sonorant) that behave phonology like single . When unambiguous, prenasalized consonants may simply be transcribed e.g. . In the IPA, a tie bar may be used to specify that these are single segments, as in or . The tie bar is commonly omitted. Another common transcription practice is to make the nasal superscript: , especially when it is phonetically distinct from a nasal-stop sequence. An old convention of the IPA was to mark the nasal as 'short' until the short and the nonsyllabic signs diverged, as in . Principles of the IPA (1947: 17–18)
The primary reason for considering these to be single consonants, rather than clusters as in English finger or member, lies in their behavior; however, there may also be phonetic correlates which distinguish prenasalized consonants from clusters. Because of the additional difficulty in both articulation and timing, prenasalized fricatives and sonorants are not as common as prenasalized stops or affricates, and the presence of the former implies the latter. Only three languages (Sinhala language, Fula language, Selayarese) have been reported to have a contrast between prenasalized consonants () and their corresponding clusters ().
In most languages, when a prenasalized consonant is described as "voiceless", it is only the oral portion that is voiceless, and the nasal portion is modally voiced. Thus, a language may have "voiced" and "voiceless" . However, in some Southern Min (including Taiwanese) dialects, voiced consonants are preceded by voiceless prenasalization: .Chan (1987) "Post-stopped nasals in Chinese: an areal study", UCLA WPP #68 Yeyi language has prenasalized and clicks like .*Seidel, Frank (2008), A Grammar of Yeyi: A Bantu Language of Southern Africa. R. Köppe. Nizaa language has prenasalized implosives like . Adzera language has a .
Prenasalized stops may be distinguished from post-oralized or post-stopped nasals (orally released nasals), such as the of Acehnese and similar sounds (including voiceless ) in many dialects of Chinese.Chan (1987) Post-stopped nasals in Chinese: an areal study (At least in the Chinese case, nasalization, in some dialects, continues in a reduced degree to the vowel, indicating that the consonant is partially , rather than actually having an oral release.) No language is believed to contrast the two types of consonant, which are distinguished primarily by a difference in timing (a brief nasal followed by longer stop, as opposed to a longer nasal followed by brief stop).Cohn (1990) "Phonetic and Phonological Rules of Nasalization", UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 76, p. 7.
Prenasalized consonants are widely utilized in the Loloish languages of the Lolo–Burmese family, such as Nuosu language and Naxi language. The following table illustrates the prenasalized consonants in northern Yi.
| + Prenasalized consonants in Northern Yi ! scope="col" | Meaning |
| skirt | |
| drink | |
| buckwheat | |
| control | |
| wine, liquor | |
| quick, fast |
The prenasalized stops also occur in several branches of the Hmong–Mien language family of Southern China and Southeast Asia.
In dialects of northern Japan, standard voiced stops are prenasalized, and voiceless stops are voiced. For example, "strawberry" is in most of the south, but in much of the north. Prenasalized stops are also reconstructed for Old Japanese.
| + Four-way contrast in Sinhala |
| shoulder pole |
| ear |
| trunk |
| hill |
Sri Lankan Malay has been in contact with Sinhala a long time and has also developed prenasalized stops. The spectrograms on the right show the word gambar with a prenasalized stop and the word sambal with a sequence of nasal+voiced stop, yet not prenasalized. The difference in the length of the m part is clearly visible. The nasal in the prenasalized word is much shorter than the nasal in the other word.
This phonetic information is complemented by phonological evidence: The first vowel in gaambar is lengthened, which only happens in open syllables in Sri Lanka Malay. The syllabification of gambar must be ga.mbar then, and the syllabification of sambal sam.bal.
When Tok Pisin is spoken by people in Papua New Guinea who have similar phonologies in their languages, voiced consonants are prenasalized. For example, the preposition bilong (from English belong) is pronounced by many Melanesians. The prenasalization behaves as a phonetic detail of voicing, rather than a separate segment.
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