11899
I am currently reading a manga for studying Japanese and encountered something
strange. A girl exclaims「な゛?!」

The situation is that she has just had water squirted up her nose, so I am
guessing it's a kind of 'gnya' sound?

So my question is, is this a real Japanese language thing, or is it just the
artist taking liberties with the language for comic effect?

Cheers
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2013-05-16T04:12:08.943
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2017-08-28T02:00:41.380
2013-05-17T15:00:11.740
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question
grammar pronunciation orthography hiragana
Encountered な with ten-ten
We sometimes write 「な!?」,「なっ!?」 or 「なっ・・・!?」 (These three will be pronounced
the same way) to mean 「なにっ！？」 or 「何！？」. Probably it's like "Wha...!?" or "What
the...!?"

We also sometimes write 「え゛っ！」 in place of 「えっ！」 to add emphasis, but the 「゛」
([濁点]{だくてん}) won't change/affect the pronunciation, so it'd be impossible to
pronounce 「な゛」 or 「え゛」 correctly (I don't know what would be "correct" here
though).

However, if I were a voice actress and had to read them, I'd probably read
them as...

[「え゛っ！」](http://vocaroo.com/i/s0YZv2DMG8AA) instead of
[「えっ！」](http://vocaroo.com/i/s1OamI04IXob)

(So... maybe you'd call it a "thick/gruff/husky(?) voice"?? Or, is this what
you'd call "strained", as in @ogicu8abruok's comment?)
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2013-05-16T07:47:11.150
11899
2017-08-28T02:00:41.380
2017-08-28T02:00:41.380
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answer
I believe in this instance, the dots are used for emphasis. Since な is only a
sound (or partial word), the net effect is basically just a louder
exclamation. It's the difference between writing "What!?" and " _What_!?" in
English (note the italics).
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2013-05-16T13:54:06.013
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answer