Y Treiglad Trwynol • The Nasal Mutation

This one is easier to grasp than the Soft Mutation, especially since we've already explained a bunch of stuff about consonants, where they're pronounced, and how they differ. Also, the nasal mutation only occurs in a few places in the language (two places, commonly), so it's not hard to get a grip on.

Let's take a look at that table of consonants above, only let's just look at the stop consonants, the ones that interrupt the airflow in the mouth completely:

What would happen if you interrupted the airflow in the mouth, but let it flow freely through the nose? Say a /b/ and an /m/ a few times one after the other, and you'll feel what changes in your mouth -- the back of your palate drops down when you say the /m/, doesn't it? Airflow through the mouth is still stopped, but when that little flap of soft palate drops, the air is permitted to run through your nose now. It's the same with /d/ and /n/ and /g/ and the /ng/ sound that we don't have a letter for but that you find at the end of words like "sing" and "ring."

In the Nasal Mutation, the back of the soft palate drops for the stop consonants and permits airflow through the nose. With the voiced stops like /b/, /d/, and /g/, the letters simply turn into their nasal counterparts /m/, /n/, and /ng/. For the voiceless stops, they do the same with an extra little puff; this is written as "mh," "nh," and "ngh." I know, it looks weird, and you can wonder just how in God's name you pronounce the nasally mutated form of the city of Cardiff: "Nghaerdydd." It's not that bad, though. In truth, the Nasal Mutation is always caused by another word in front of the one that's mutating, so you'll never have to say "Nghaerdydd" isolated like that. It'll always come after another word, which makes it tons easier to say.

Where does the Nasal Mutation occur?

The only places where you'll really have to worry about the Nasal Mutation popping up are:

1. After the possessive pronoun "my,"
2. After the preposition "in."

That's it, really. Just worry about those, and you'll be fine.