Nasal vowel

The nasal vowels are produced by the passage of the air in the Nasal fossae thanks to the lowering of the Velum ( velum ). The flow of air continues at the same time to pass by the mouth. The process making it possible to pass from a Voyelle known as oral (normal) to a nasal vowel is the Nasalisation.

These vowels are in particular used in French, in Portuguese, Polish, and Breton (nonexhaustive list). One also meets them in many languages of Africa.

Notation of a nasal vowel

There exist several manners of indicating to the writing this type of vowels (nonexhaustive list and not taking into account many particular cases):

French orthography: a vowel followed by a nasal Consonant ( m or N ): year , in , in , one , a , for example;
Portuguese orthography: a vowel followed by a nasal or surmounted consonant of a Tilde: ã , õ (these last in the Digraph S ão , ãe , ãi and õe );
Polish orthography: a Ogonek subscribes to the vowel: ą , ę ;
Breton orthography: a vowel followed by a N or a N tilde ñ : year , añ , in , eñ , in , iñ , one , oñ , a , uñ . Followed by a N , the vowel is nasalisée and the consonant N is pronounced, followed by a ñ , the vowel is nasalisée and N is not marked. One thus distinguishes gouelañ (“to cry”) from gouelan (“goëland”).

The invention of the concept of the nasal vowels of French

The concept of nasal French vowels was described for the first time in 1711 by the abbot of Dangeau in his Essais of grammar . The concept was taken again and specified by it in 1767 by Nicolas Beauzée, which is the first to define the nasality compared to orality. Thus, he writes in his general Grammaire that the nasal articulations are those “which make ebb by the nose part of the sound air in the moment of the interception, in manner that at the time of the explosion there remains only one part about it to produce the articulated voice,” while the oral articulations are those “which does not force the sound air to pass by the nose in the moment of the interception, in manner that at the time of the explosion any fate by the ordinary opening of the mouth” (49-51).

A lesson on the nasal vowels

A lesson to be made with your pupils and/or children:

Lesson number 2: “Nasal vowels” 1. Setting in situation: “How much there are vowels in the French language?” “6: has, E, I, O, U, Y.” “Very well, but did you know that there is 16 in the phonetic alphabet of them?” “What a vowel?” “has, E, I, O, U, Y.” “It is well, but what differentiates a vowel from a consonant?” “The sound is not blocked. It leaves the voice. One does not close the mouth to pronounce it.”

2. To present the expected performance (to prick curiosity). “I have these two words: ch____bre (room) and p____d____t (during).”

“What one does make to find the good orthography?” “Dictionary” “And if there is not a dictionary, that can we make?”

Goal of the lesson: “Following this lesson, you will be able to write an/en or am/em correctly, without having recourse to the dictionary.”

3. To make sure of the attention of learning. “Be you ready to start?”

4. Regulate intellectual skill: to ensure the recall of the preconditions “Beginning of the discovery”. “To begin the discovery, we will seek we tools.” “What one could make to find the good orthography for the word room and the word during?” “Do you Have ideas? ” “…” 1° in which column? “One will be made a table: ” 2° Comment do you write it? “Which words have the sound “in”? ” “…” 3° Which sound interests us?

“How could we call this sound there?” “Put your fingers on your nose and grip while saying: in.” “What you do feel?” “That vibrates”

“Indeed, the nose vibrates, therefore one calls it a nasal vowel.” “But are there others of them? Let us make a test… Dites: A white good wine” “Thus there is not only in like nasal vowel. There are thus 3 others of them. One will continue our table.”

“In, one, year, one”

m N time in fields how symbol doctor imprudent incorrect bend to lay lumbago each one

“Which could be the rule, look at the table to help you?” (It is necessary to let the young people discover the rule, if they do not find it, to give indices: “Look at the nasal vowel, which are the letters before and afterwards? In the 1st column (M) what one finds? P B. In the 2nd column? ”)

5. Rules of intellectual skill: to place in situation of discovered: to provide increasing indices until the discovery (Discovery). Statement of the rule. “Which would be the rule according to you? ” “…” (The nasal vowel is generally written with “N”, however, one writes it with a “m”, if it is placed in front of a “B” or a “p”).

6. Regulate intellectual skill “Do you Think of being able to memorize the rule?” “not” “One will find an encoding (code) to remember it.” “Do you Have an easy way to remember some?”

Encoding: P is looked in the Mirror and makes a B.

“Does That go until there?” 7. … 8. To check the control in situation of performance. To reconsider the words “field” and “during”. “How you for the knowledge make that he is written like that?” … 9. Autonomy of training of the performances of higher level. “Do you Think that can also be done with words which one does not know?” “yes” Example: The word “c___po” (campo, to give campo to somebody, to grant to him one moment of freedom, recreation)”. “Even with words which one does not know, the rule applies.”

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