Hard resonants

The last consonants that we will discuss are the hard resonants:

Letter	Name	How it is pronounced
m̓	hard m	like m with a catch before it
n̓	hard n	like n with a catch before it
w̓	hard w	like w with a catch before it
y̓	hard y	like y with a catch before it

Resonant consonants like m n w y are humming sounds, made with vibrating vocal cords. The glottalized, or hard resonants m̓ n̓ w̓ y̓ are pronounced like their plain counterparts, but are a little longer, and are preceded by a catch in the throat like a glottal stop (ʔ).

Here are some examples:

Glottalization on resonants is not difficult to hear between vowels, as in suw̓aas, but it can be very difficult to hear at the beginnings of words, as in w̓aaʔak.

This is the end of the tutorial. You can click ► to continue to the reference pages, or explore other parts of this website using the navigation bar.