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Prenasalized consonants are phonetic sequences of a nasal and an obstruent ] that behave phonologically like single consonants. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather than clusters as in English finger or member, lies in their behaviour; however, there may also be phonetic correlates which distinguish prenasalized consonants from clusters. Because of the additional difficulty in both articulation and timing, prenasalized fricatives and sonorants are not as common as prenasalized stops or affricates, and the presence of the former implies the latter.
In most languages, when a prenasalized consonant is described as "voiceless", it is only the oral portion that is voiceless, and the nasal portion is modally voiced. Thus, a language may have "voiced" and "voiceless". However, in some Southern Min dialects, voiced consonants are preceded by voiceless prenasalization:. Yeyi has prenasalized ejectives. Adzera has a /ⁿʔ/.
Prenasalized stops may be distinguished from post-stopped nasals , such as the /mᵇ nᵈ ɲᶡ ŋᶢ/ of Acehnese and similar sounds in many dialects of Chinese. No language is believed to contrast the two types of consonant, which are distinguished primarily by a difference in timing.