Phonology
Sound inventory and phonological rules
20 consonants
13 vowels
Consonant Inventory
| Manner | Bilabial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | · | t | · | · | kg | ||||||
| Nasal | m | · | n | · | ɲ | ŋ | ||||||
| Trill | · | · | r | · | · | · | ||||||
| Fricative | ɸβ | fv | sz | ʒ | · | x | ||||||
| Approximant | · | · | · | · | j | w | ||||||
| Lateral approximant | · | · | l | · | · | · | ||||||
Vowel Inventory
| Height | Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | iy | · | u |
| Near-close | ɪ | · | ʊ |
| Close-mid | · | · | o |
| Mid | ø̞ | ə | · |
| Open-mid | ɛ | · | ʌɔ |
| Open | a | · | ɑ |
Syllable Structure
(C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)Phoneme Frequency
Distribution of phonemes across 125 transcribed dictionary entries (508 total tokens)
/i/
59 (11.6%)
/tʰ/
51 (10%)
/r/
45 (8.9%)
/ə/
34 (6.7%)
/a/
33 (6.5%)
/s/
28 (5.5%)
/t/
25 (4.9%)
/n/
24 (4.7%)
/ʒ/
22 (4.3%)
/z/
17 (3.3%)
/v/
16 (3.1%)
/ɪn/
15 (3%)
/y/
15 (3%)
/o/
15 (3%)
/ɸ/
14 (2.8%)
/l/
12 (2.4%)
/k/
11 (2.2%)
/m/
10 (2%)
/p/
8 (1.6%)
/x/
8 (1.6%)
/ɑ/
7 (1.4%)
/ɪ/
6 (1.2%)
/β/
5 (1%)
/sj/
5 (1%)
/ɔ̞/
5 (1%)
/j/
4 (0.8%)
/u/
3 (0.6%)
/f/
3 (0.6%)
/aː/
2 (0.4%)
/ɲ/
2 (0.4%)