[m]→[ʔ]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 2/5

Bilabial nasal to Glottal stop

The shift from the bilabial nasal [m] to a glottal stop [ʔ] is a form of debuccalization. It typically occurs in syllable-final (coda) positions when a language simplifies its phonology toward an open-syllable structure. The oral closure (lips) is lost, leaving only the glottal tension that originally accompanied the consonant.

Phonetic Effects

Debuccalization, Coda Reduction, Glottalization

Language Examples

Japanese (Kagoshima Dialect) Japonic

kami [m] (paper)→ka' [ʔ]— Through a process of vowel apocope and subsequent debuccalization, final nasals often surface as glottal stops in rapid speech.

Burmese Sino-Tibetan

historical *-am→[ãʔ]— Historical nasal codas have merged into nasalized vowels followed by a glottal stop.

Related Transformations

Reverse

More Sino-Tibetan Shifts

[b] → [p] — Voice Loss [tɕ] → [ɕ] — Lenition [d] → [dʑ] — Palatalization [d] → [t] — Voice Loss [dz] → [l] — Deaffrication

Sources & References

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