Talk:N (kana)

Nda
"it can never begin a word" says the article. How true is this? In Akita dialect "nda" means "yes". Jimp 17:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Japanese dialects are really screwy. I don't doubt it begins words, but it's really not supposed to. I don't know how not-supposed-to it is: I dunno if it's just something for sticklers or if it sounds really unnatural. I don't speak enough Japanese to answer that.

"nda" is probably some kind of contraction or ellision. I'd bet it'd get written ンデ if the intention was for any reader to arrive at "nda", but whatever it's a contraction of (no idea - ほんとうだ, maybe?) normally.

So if you were trying to capture dialectical flavor, I'd guess the way to write it would be ンデ; in formal writing it'd show up ほんとうだ (if that's what it's supposed to be) and pronounced as if んだ.

If you know the dialect, you probably know more than me. The 'no N at the beginning of the word' is probably not as hard and fast as my professors have let on. 131.216.104.179 07:36, 15 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I've been taught that ん/ン never starts a word, even in カタカナ, and you can't have んん or んー. It's probably true that different dialects use ん in different ways, but ～んだ is a contraction　for ～の　です. It is usually used in confirming interrogations.
 * I just googled "n da" on google and found this: http://japanese.about.com/blqow24.htm. Based on previous experience with about.com, I don't know if this is completely trustworthy, but then again, I'm a noob at Japanese. Hangfromthefloor 15:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

In response to everyone: I have always assumed that when an article mentions "Japanese", it's referring to standard Japanese (標準語), unless explicitly stating otherwise. Dialects and slang of course have their own rules that differ from standard Japanese about what is and isn't acceptable. But in standard Japanese, ん never begins a word.LeeWilson 14:48, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe the "Okinawan" dialect, to name one, has words that start with ’ん’, but as was previously stated it is grammatically incorrect in standard Japanese. The word game Shiritori also hinges upon this rule of standard Japanese, as starting a word with ’ん’ is a condition for one of the participants to lose the game.

-68.188.218.241 (talk) 04:20, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation before /s/
According to the source I cited in the article (a comic essay co-authored by a linguistics expert), ん is pronounced /n/ before /s/, but the Japanese phonology article says it's a nasalized vowel, so I put up the contradiction template in both articles. Is one right and the other wrong? Can it be pronounced either way? Spacecat2 00:42, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * It's pronounced as nasalization on the vowel before /s/. I've changed the article accordingly.LeeWilson 14:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

ũ͍
I see the IPA ũ͍ used for ん before vowel with no link or explanation. Can this be elaborated more? Also, doesn't it affect neighboring vowels by way of nasalization? Terse reference to vowel nasalization caused by ん is referenced here: Japanese phonology.--Saledomo (talk) 10:23, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Pronounciation of ん before ch and j
This page says that, before consonants that start with ch and j (E.g. ちゃ and じゃ), ん is pronounced as [n] but the Japanese phonology page says that it's pronounced as [ɲ] in this situation. Can anyone explain to me why this is as it is? -GinormousBuildings (talk • contribs) 14:45, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Because those two phonemes are almost identical, and only differ in a slightly different place of articulation. In fact, they are so close as to be allophones in English, and you will find that many English speakers will pronounce the "n" in a word like "launch" closer to [ɲ] than [n]. So the question kind of becomes whether a narrow transcription of that sound is best represented by [n̠ ] to maintain the locus of the /n/ phoneme or as [ɲ] to represent the euphony with its context. So the real question is whether the reader at this page and at Japanese phonology is better served by [n] or [ɲ] in understanding the sound quality of ん. VanIsaac, MPLLcont WpWS 21:33, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

M kana
I can't find any information on 'kipedia about the /m/ kana, I know it used to exist.. it was written almost exactly like /n/ and used in words like 'kimbun' and such, but became obsolete sometime after the 60s. Unless it was completely invented by this old learning-Nihongo textbook, which I suppose is totally possible. But if that is the case, there should at least be some reference to how /n/ before /b/ glosses into /m/ in pronunciation sometimes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.94.57.191 (talk) 09:21, 14 February 2022 (UTC)