The palatal nasal is a type of consonant, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase letter n with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bottom of the left stem of the letter. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J. The IPA symbol is similar to , the symbol for the retroflex nasal, which has a rightward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem, and to , the symbol for the velar nasal, which has a leftward-pointing hook extending from the bottom of the right stem.