Phonology
Sound inventory and phonological rules
21 consonants
12 vowels
Consonant Inventory
| Manner | Bilabial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | pb | · | td | · | ɖ | · | kg | · | · | |||||||||
| Nasal | m | · | n | · | · | · | · | · | · | |||||||||
| Fricative | · | f | s | ʒ | · | · | · | χʁ | ħ | |||||||||
| Affricate | · | · | · | tʃdʒ | · | · | · | · | · | |||||||||
| Approximant | · | · | · | · | · | ɥ | w | · | · | |||||||||
| Lateral approximant | · | · | l | · | · | · | · | · | · | |||||||||
Vowel Inventory
| Height | Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | iy | · | u |
| Close-mid | eø | · | o |
| Mid | · | ə | · |
| Open-mid | ɛ | · | ɔ |
| Open | aɶ | · | ɑ |
Syllable Structure
CV(V)Phoneme Frequency
Distribution of phonemes across 259 transcribed dictionary entries (968 total tokens)
/u/
89 (9.2%)
/s/
61 (6.3%)
/o/
58 (6%)
/ɖ/
55 (5.7%)
/a/
54 (5.6%)
/k/
48 (5%)
/ʁ/
47 (4.9%)
/ʒ/
45 (4.6%)
/ɔ̃/
43 (4.4%)
/i/
39 (4%)
/j/
38 (3.9%)
/t/
33 (3.4%)
/e/
32 (3.3%)
/n/
29 (3%)
/ɛ̃/
28 (2.9%)
/ɛ/
25 (2.6%)
/b/
24 (2.5%)
/ħ/
23 (2.4%)
/χ/
19 (2%)
/f/
19 (2%)
/ɶ/
19 (2%)
/ø/
18 (1.9%)
/wa/
18 (1.9%)
/l/
13 (1.3%)
/m/
11 (1.1%)
/wi/
11 (1.1%)
/ɥ/
11 (1.1%)
/ɑ̃/
10 (1%)
/p/
10 (1%)
/ə/
9 (0.9%)