Phonology
Sound inventory and phonological rules
18 consonants
5 vowels
Consonant Inventory
| Manner | Bilabial | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | b | td | · | · | kg | q | · | |||||||
| Nasal | m | n | · | · | · | · | · | |||||||
| Trill | · | r | · | · | · | · | · | |||||||
| Fricative | · | s | ʃ | · | xɣ | · | ħʕ | |||||||
| Approximant | · | · | · | j | w | · | · | |||||||
| Lateral approximant | · | l | · | · | · | · | · | |||||||
Vowel Inventory
| Height | Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | · | u |
| Near-close | ɪ | · | ʊ |
| Open | · | · | ɑ |
Syllable Structure
CCVCPhoneme Frequency
Distribution of phonemes across 194 transcribed dictionary entries (968 total tokens)
/ɪ/
184 (19%)
/ʊ/
158 (16.3%)
/ɑː/
117 (12.1%)
/k/
48 (5%)
/ʤ/
37 (3.8%)
/w/
37 (3.8%)
/r/
34 (3.5%)
/l/
34 (3.5%)
/m/
33 (3.4%)
/x/
32 (3.3%)
/n/
32 (3.3%)
/d/
29 (3%)
/t/
27 (2.8%)
/s/
26 (2.7%)
/b/
26 (2.7%)
/j/
25 (2.6%)
/ʃ/
23 (2.4%)
/ħ/
22 (2.3%)
/g/
19 (2%)
/q/
13 (1.3%)
/ɣ/
7 (0.7%)
/ʕ/
5 (0.5%)