nasality

Nasality is the quality in speech or singing that happens when some sound passes through the nose as well as the mouth. It is the kind of "twang" you may notice in some voices, accents, or styles of singing. Some of it is completely natural: sounds like "m," "n," and "ng" are made with nasal resonance. But if there is too much of it, a voice may sound less clear or too sharp. Singers, actors, and speech teachers often pay attention to this and try to keep the sound balanced. You might describe someone's voice by saying, "Her speech had a noticeable nasality."

Nasality describes the sound quality created when part of the airflow for speech goes through the nasal passages. It is not automatically a bad thing; in fact, many languages and dialects use different degrees of it as a normal part of pronunciation. For example, French and Portuguese often have more nasal vowels than English. The amount of nasality depends largely on the position of the velum, or soft palate, at the back of the mouth. When the velum lowers, it opens the way for air to pass through the nose and creates that nasal resonance.

Sometimes a strong nasal quality affects how a speaker is heard by others. It can result from speaking habits, singing technique, or physical causes such as a deviated septum or enlarged adenoids. A cold can also change the sound of a voice, although that is often more accurately called hyponasality, which means too little nasal resonance because the nose is blocked. Speech therapists, vocal coaches, and actors may work on controlling resonance so that speech sounds clearer or better fits a certain style. You will most often see the word "nasality" in discussions of phonetics, accents, singing, speech therapy, or voice and medical issues. For example: "The actor worked with a dialect coach to reduce the nasality in his portrayal of a New Yorker," or "The singer's slight nasality gave her voice a distinctive color."