grammar - Encountered な with ten-ten

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

Answer

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！」 instead of 「えっ！」

(So... maybe you'd call it a "thick/gruff/husky(?) voice"?? Or, is this what you'd call "strained", as in @ogicu8abruok's comment?)