# Afrikaans: Nasal vowels



## cadarika

so I've read a couple of times that Afrikaans has nasal vowels but where do they occur? and how are they represented orthographically? thanks


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## ryba

Hi, cadarica!

I am (literally) no expert on Afrikaans, don’t speak it nor have been exposed to its spoken forms, but I’ve done some Google research and found this:



> Het Afrikaans is een van de weinige Germaanse talen die nasale klinkers gebruikt. De Afrikaanse /a ɛ ɔ/ worden nasaal uitgesproken wanneer ze gevolgd worden door een _n_ + fricatief. Bijvoorbeeld: _mense_ wordt uitgesproken als [mɛ̃sə] en _aangesig_ als [ã:xəsɪx].


 
Afrikaans is one of the few Germanic languages to have nasal vowels. The Afrikaans /a ɛ ɔ/ are pronounced nasally when followed by a _n_ + fricative. For example: _mense_ is pronounced as [mɛ̃sə] and _aangesig_ as [ã:xəsɪx].

Accordingly, Wiktionary has _ons_ /ɔns/ [ɔ̃s] and _Afrikaans_ /afrɪˈkɑ̃ːs/ (which should be “/afrɪˈkɑːns/ [afrɪˈkɑ̃ːs]” or sth like that, if we proceed on the premise that we shouldn’t give it the status of a phoneme).

There’s also this Wikipedia discussion thread entitled Neusklank:


> Soos genoem word die /n/ in Standaardafrikaanse _gans, kuns, tent_ en _hond_ deur die klinker geassimileer tot een neusklank. Dit gebeur in my ondervinding nie by /-in-/ in _kind_ nie. Daar sê 'n mens mos die /n/. Of is ek abuis? Thiois 14:41, 18 Oktober 2006 (UTC)Ek sê persoonlik die /n/ in al daardie woorde en ek dink nie ek het al ooit gehoor van iemand wat dit nie doen nie (behalwe _miskien_ "gans"). Nasaleer ander mense hierdies? --Alias 16:12, 18 Oktober 2006 (UTC)​Ja, ek hoor dit die heeltyd. "Ku~stefees, hõd, te~t", ens. Miskien is dit gewestelik. Ek sal maar aan die beskrywing van nasalisering toevoeg dat party mense dit doen en dat dit nie 'n reël is nie. Thiois 16:31, 18 Oktober 2006 (UTC)​


​ Just as it has been mentioned, the /n/ in Standard Afrikaans _gans__, __kuns__, __tent_, and _hond_ gets assimilated by the vowel to a nasal sound. In my experience, this doesn’t happen with /-in-/ as in _kind_. You do pronounce the /n/ there, right? Or am I mistaken? Thiois 14:41, 18 October 2006 (UTC)I personally say the /n/ in all those words and I don't think I have ever heard of someone who doesn’t (_perhaps_ except for "gans"). Do others nasalize this? --Alias 16:12, 18 October 2006 (UTC)​ Yes, I hear it all the time. "Kũstefees (for _kunstefees_), hõd (for _hond_), tẽt (for _tent_)", etc. Maybe it’s regional. I’ll just add to the description of nasalization that some people do it and that it’s not a rule. Thiois 16:31, 18 October 2006 (UTC)​ 
Note that what follows the nasal in _hond_ and _tent_ is not a fricative. It’s a plosive: /d/ and /t/, pronounced [t] in absolute final position in both words.

I’ve just listened to a YT video called _Afrikaans - Klinkers_ (v=q1Kt7C-0tJg), where a teacher explains to little kids the vowels Afrikaans has, and she pronounces _ons_ and _Afrikaans_ with a clear [n]-sound, although the vowel does seem to be slightly nasalized, whereby _ons_ (4:08) becomes a sort of [ɔ̃ns] and _-kaans_ becomes a sort of [ˈkɑ̃ːns], even though it (the word _Afrikaans_) is used in sentences that are in English.  It seems to me that the vowel of _monster_ is also nasalized in the kids' pronunciation (4:07). Other words with the sequence vowel + /n/ include _dink_ (3:22) and _rond_ (3:46).

This is the only "serious academic" source (touching up)on the topic I've managed to find:

Van Keymeulen, Jacques. 2013. “Afrikaans en de Nederlandse kustdialecten [Afrikaans and the coastal dialects of the Dutch language]”, _Mededelingen der __z__ittingen van de Koninklijke Akademie der Overzeese Wetenschappen _59: 303-319.

The curious thing is that, while enumerating features shared by Dutch coastal dialects and Afrikaans, Keymeulen (2013: 8) talks about a long nasal(ized) vowel in _dans_ and _ons_. Now, a long nasal(ized) vowel is not a surprise in _Afrikaans_, where the underlying vowel phoneme itself has the quality of long, but in _dans_ and _ons_, whose underlying vowel phonemes are short, a long quality would probably have to be the result of compensatory lengthening, as the [n] is (being) lost. That’s not an uncommon thing to happen at all (cf. PGmc _*gans_ > OE _gōs_, PGmc _*uns_ > OE _ūs_), except it wasn’t mentioned in any of the other accounts cited above.


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## cadarika

whoa, this is awesome material. thank you _so_ much for taking the time to get it! ^^


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## luitzen

To me it appears that nasalisation in Afrikaans is quite the same as in West-Frisian.


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