Editing Plosive (section)

===Nasalization===
{{Further|Nasal consonant|Nasalization}}
Simple [[Nasal occlusive|nasals]] are differentiated from plosives only by a lowered [[Soft palate|velum]] that allows the air to escape through the nose during the occlusion. Nasals are acoustically [[sonorant]]s, as they have a non-turbulent airflow and are nearly always voiced, but they are articulatorily [[obstruent]]s, as there is complete blockage of the oral cavity. The term [[occlusive]] may be used as a cover term for both nasals and plosives.

A [[prenasalized stop]] starts out with a lowered velum that raises during the occlusion. The closest examples in English are consonant clusters such as the [nd] in ''candy'', but many languages have prenasalized stops that function phonologically as single consonants. [[Swahili language|Swahili]] is well known for having words beginning with prenasalized stops, as in ''ndege'' 'bird', and in many languages of the South Pacific, such as [[Fijian language|Fijian]], these are even spelled with single letters: ''b'' [mb], ''d'' [nd].

A [[Nasal release|postnasalized plosive]] begins with a raised velum that lowers during the occlusion. This causes an audible nasal ''release'', as in English ''sudden''. This could also be compared to the /dn/ cluster found in [[Russian language|Russian]] and other Slavic languages, which can be seen in the name of the [[Dnieper River]].

The terms ''prenasalization'' and ''postnasalization'' are normally used only in languages where these sounds are phonemic: that is, not analyzed into sequences of plosive plus nasal.