In
phonetics, a
nasal release is the release of a
stop consonant into a
nasal. Such sounds are transcribed in the
IPA with superscript nasal letters, for example as in English
catnip . In English words such as
sudden in which historically the tongue made separate contacts with the alveolar ridge for the /d/ and /n/, , many speakers today make only one contact. That is, the /d/ is released directly into the /n/: . Although this is a minor phonetic detail in English (in fact, it is commonly transcribed as having
no audible release: , ), nasal release is more important in some other languages.