What is palatal nasal?

The palatal nasal is a type of consonant sound that is produced by creating a blockage of airflow in the oral cavity by raising the back of the tongue to touch the soft palate, also known as the velum. This type of nasal phoneme is pronounced using the mouth cavity in conjunction with the nasal cavity to create a specific sound. In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), this sound is represented by the symbol [ɲ] and is commonly found in various languages, including Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Italian. The palatal nasal is considered a relatively uncommon sound in languages worldwide, with only around 12% of languages containing this phoneme.