What is "nasalization"

Nasalization \Na`sal*i*za"tion\, n. The act of nasalizing, or the state of being nasalized.

n. 1 (context phonetics uncountable English) the articulation of a vowel or continuant consonant in such a way that air flows through the nose at the same time as it flows through the mouth 2 (context countable English) a particular instance of such change 3 (context Irish grammar English) eclipsis

n. the act of nasalizing; the utterance of sounds modulated by the nasal resonators [syn: nasalisation]

In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is .

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, nasalization is indicated by printing a tilde diacritic above the symbol for the sound to be nasalized: is the nasalized equivalent of , and is the nasalized equivalent of . An older IPA subscript diacritic , called an ogonek, is still seen, especially when the vowel bears tone marks that would interfere with the superscript tilde. For example, are more legible in most fonts than .