Phonology

Sound inventory and phonological rules

22 consonants
7 vowels

Consonant Inventory

MannerBilabialLabiodentalAlveolarPostalveolarPalatalVelarGlottal
Plosive
pb
·
td
·
·
kg
·
Nasal
m
·
n
·
ɲ
ŋ
·
Tap/Flap
·
·
ɾ
·
·
·
·
Fricative
·
f
sz
ɕ
·
·
h
Affricate
·
·
ts
·
tɕdʑ
·
·
Approximant
·
·
·
·
j
w
·
Lateral approximant
·
·
l
·
·
·
·

Vowel Inventory

HeightFrontCentralBack
Close
i
·
ɯu
Near-close
ɪ
··
Close-mid
e
·
o
Open
a
··

Syllable Structure

CV

Phonological Rules

<z> and <l> cannot be placed at the beginning of words.
Buffer vowels such as <o> and <u> serve to separate illegal consonant clusters.
Allowed consonant clusters: <nt>, <nd>, <nk>, <ng>, <nb>, <np>, <nm>, <mn> 
Final consonants: <n>, <m>
<ts> and <f> can be paired with any vowel.
Vowel lengthening is phonemic.

Phoneme Frequency

Distribution of phonemes across 708 transcribed dictionary entries (3,237 total tokens)

/u/
455 (14.1%)
/o/
377 (11.6%)
/a/
360 (11.1%)
/i/
315 (9.7%)
/k/
298 (9.2%)
/m/
196 (6.1%)
/t/
185 (5.7%)
/s/
141 (4.4%)
/ɕ/
116 (3.6%)
/j/
112 (3.5%)
/ɾ/
104 (3.2%)
/d/
99 (3.1%)
/e/
93 (2.9%)
/g/
85 (2.6%)
/h/
80 (2.5%)
/oː/
77 (2.4%)
/w/
36 (1.1%)
/b/
35 (1.1%)
/aː/
24 (0.7%)
/z/
15 (0.5%)
/f/
15 (0.5%)
/iː/
6 (0.2%)
/eː/
6 (0.2%)
/p/
3 (0.1%)
/l/
2 (0.1%)
/ɲ/
2 (0.1%)