[n]→[k]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 2/5

Denasalization Fortition Place Assimilation Sinitic Japonic Historical Linguistics

Alveolar nasal to Voiceless velar plosive

The phonetic transformation from an alveolar nasal /n/ to a voiceless velar plosive /k/ is a specific type of conditioned sound change involving denasalization, devoicing, and a backing of the place of articulation. This shift is typically observed in historical linguistic contexts where an alveolar nasal, often derived from an earlier consonant cluster, loses its nasality and becomes a velar stop.

Phonetic Effects

Denasalization, Devoicing, Place Assimilation, Fortition

Language Examples

Taiwanese Sinitic

*-n→k— In the word for 'hundred' (百, 'pek' /pɛk/), an earlier medial/final *-nd or *-nt (from Indo-European cognates) is hypothesized to have first assimilated to *-n, which then underwent denasalization to /k/.

Sino-Japanese Japonic

*-n→k— In the word for 'hundred' (百, 'hyaku' /hjakɯ/), an earlier medial/final *-nd or *-nt (from Indo-European cognates) is hypothesized to have first assimilated to *-n, which then underwent denasalization to /k/.

More Japonic Shifts

[d] → [dʑ] — Palatalization [d] → [t] — Voice Loss [dz] → [l] — Deaffrication [ɡʲ] → [dz] — Fronting [i] → [∅] — Elision

Sources & References

Wu, C. H. (2016). Patterns of Sound Correspondence between Taiwanese and Germanic/Latin/Greek/Romance Lexicons. Part I. Sino-Platonic Papers, 262.

Spotted a mistake or have a better example?

EchoDrift is community-driven. You can suggest a change directly through GitHub.

Propose an Edit on GitHub