N A letter which regularly follows M in the alphabet, and,
like it in its early forms has the first limb longer than
the others; thus, written from right to left, 
. The
Semitic languages gradually diminish the size of the
other two limbs, while the Greek and Latin alphabets tend to
make all three of equal length. The earliest name of the symbol
was Nūn, whence comes the Greek ny (νῦ). The sound of n
varies according to the point at which the contact of the tongue
with the roof of the mouth is made; it may be dental, alveolar,
palatal or guttural. In Sanskrit these four sounds are distinguished
by different symbols; the last two occur in combination
with stops or affricates of the same series. The French
or German n when standing by itself is dental, the English
alveolar, i.e. pronounced like the English t and d against the
sockets of the teeth instead of the teeth themselves. The guttural
nasal is written in English ng as in ring; for the palatal n as
in lynch there is no separate symbol. The sound of n stands in the
same relation to d as m stands to b; both are ordinarily voiced
and the mouth position for both is the same, but in pronouncing
n the nasal passage is left open, so that the sound of n can be
continued while that of d cannot. This is best observed by
pronouncing syllables where the consonant comes last as in and
id. When the nasal passage is closed, as when one has a bad cold,
m and n cannot be pronounced; attempts to pronounce moon
result only in bood. Two important points arise in connexion
with nasals: (1) sonant nasals, (2) nasalization of vowels. The
discovery of sonant nasals by Dr Karl Brugman in 1876 (Curtius,
Studien, 9, pp. 285-338) explained many facts of language which
had been hitherto obscure and elucidated many difficulties in
the Indo-European vowel system. It had been observed, for example,
that the same original negative prefix was represented in
Sanskrit by a, Greek by α, in Latin by in and in Germanic by un,
and these differences had not been accounted for satisfactorily.
Dr Brugman argued that in these and similar cases the syllable
was made by the consonant alone, and the nasal so used was
termed a sonant nasal and written ṇ. In most cases Sanskrit
and Greek lost the nasal sound altogether and replaced it by a
vowel a, α, while in Latin and Germanic a vowel was developed
independently before the nasal. In the accusative singular of
consonant stems Sans. pādam, Gr. πόδα, Lat. pedem, Sanskrit
and Greek did not, as generally, agree, but it was shown that
in such cases there were originally two forms according to the
nature of the sound beginning the next word in the sentence.
Thus an original Indo-European *pedṃ, would not be treated
precisely in the same way if the next word began with a vowel
as it would when a consonant followed. Sanskrit had adopted
the form used before vowels, Greek the form before consonants
and each had dropped the alternative form. The second point—the
nasalizing of vowels—is difficult for an Englishman to understand
or to produce, as the sounds do not exist in his language.
Thus in learning to pronounce French he tends to replace the
nasalized vowels by the nearest sounds in English, making
the Fr. on a nasalized vowel (ol), into Eng. ong, a vowel
followed by a guttural consonant. The nasalized vowels are
produced by drawing forward the uvula, the “tab” at the end
of the soft palate, so that the breath escapes through the nose as
well as the mouth. In the French nasalized vowels, however,
many phoneticians hold that, besides the leaving of the nasal
passage open, there is a change in the position of the tongue in
passing from a to al. The nasalized vowels are generally written
with a hook below, upon the analogy of the transliteration of
such sounds in the Slavonic languages, but as the same symbol is
often used to distinguish an “open” vowel from a “close” one,
the use is not without ambiguity. On the other hand, it is not
admissible to write ᾶ for the nasalized vowel in languages which
have accent signs, e.g. Lithuanian. It is possible to nasalize
some consonants as well as vowels; nasalized spirants play an
important part in the so-called “Yankee” pronunciation of
Americans. (P. Gi.)
NAAS (pron. Nace, as in place), a market town of Co. Kildare, Ireland, 20 m. S.W. from Dublin on branches of the
Great Southern and Western railway and of the Grand Canal.
Pop. (1901) 3836. It is situated among the foothills of the
Wicklow Mountains, close to the river Liffey. The town is of
great antiquity, and was a residence of the kings of Leinster, the
place of whose assemblies is marked by a neighbouring rath or
mound. Naas returned two members to the Irish parliament
from 1559 until the union in 1800. Of a castle taken by Cromwell
in 1650, and of several former abbeys, there are no remains.
Punchestown racecourse, 212 m. S.E., is the scene of well-known
steeplechases.
NABATAEANS, a people of ancient Arabia, whose settlements in the time of Josephus (Ant. i. 12. 4; comp. Jerome, Quaest. in Gen. xxv.) gave the name of Nabatene to the border-land between Syria and Arabia from the Euphrates to the Red Sea. Josephus suggests, and Jerome, apparently following him, affirms, that the name is identical with that of the Ishmaelite tribe of Nĕbāiōth (Gen. xxv. 13; Isa. lx. 7), which in later Old
Testament times had a leading place among the northern Arabs,
and is associated with Kedar (Isa. lx. 7) much as Pliny v. ii (12)
associates Nabataei and Cedrei. The identification is rendered
uncertain by the fact that the name Nabataean is properly
spelled with ṭ not t (on the inscriptions, cf. also Arabic Nabaṭ,
Nabīṭ, &c.). Thus the history of the Nabataeans cannot certainly
be carried back beyond 312 B.C., at which date they were attacked
without success by Antigonus I. Cyclops in their mountain
fortress of Petra. They are described by Diodorus (xix. 94 seq.)
as being at this time a strong tribe of some 10,000 warriors,
pre-eminent among the nomadic Arabs, eschewing agriculture,
fixed houses and the use of wine, but adding to pastoral pursuits
a profitable trade with the seaports in myrrh and spices from
Arabia Felix, as well as a trade with Egypt in bitumen from
the Dead Sea. Their arid country was the best safeguard of their
cherished liberty; for the bottle-shaped cisterns for rain-water
which they excavated in the rocky or argillaceous soil were
carefully concealed from invaders. Petra (q.v.) or Selaʽ was the
ancient capital of Edom; the Nabataeans must have occupied
the old Edomite country, and succeeded to its commerce, after
the Edomites took advantage of the Babylonian captivity to
press forward into southern Judaea.[1] This migration, the date
of which cannot be determined, also made them masters of the
shores of the Gulf of ʽAḳaba and the important harbour of
Elath. Here, according to Agatharchides (Geog. Gr. Min., i.
178), they were for a time very troublesome, as wreckers
and pirates, to the reopened commerce between Egypt and
the East, till they were chastised by the Greek sovereigns of
Alexandria.
The Nabataeans had already some tincture of foreign culture when they first appear in history. That culture was naturally Aramaic; they wrote a letter to Antigonus “in Syriac letters,” and Aramaic continued to be the language of their coins and inscriptions when the tribe grew into a kingdom, and profited by the decay of the Seleucids to extend its borders northward over the more fertile country east of the Jordan. They occupied Ḥaurān, and about 85 B.C. their king Aretas (Ḥāritha) became lord of Damascus and Coele-Syria. Allies of the first Hasmonaeans in their struggles against the Greeks (1 Macc. v. 25, ix. 35; 2 Macc. v. 8), they became the rivals of the Judaean dynasty in the period of its splendour, and a chief element in the disorders which invited Pompey’s intervention in Palestine. The Roman arms were not very successful, and King Aretas retained his whole possessions, including Damascus, as a Roman
