It has 23 phonemes, containing 11 consonants and twelve vowels. There are various symbols that are used in the language that represent the various phonemic orthography of the language of Barasano itself. A phonological word in Barasano can consist of either one, or even up to nine syllables. Another important aspect of the language is stress and pitch. Many words in the language itself can be considered either high or low pitch. The Barasano language expresses this importance by way of the phonemics on the word level.
Examples[]
Consonants:
- /ta/ --> Grass
- /kahi/ --> Coca
- /rase/ --> Toucan
Vowels:
- /wa/ --> to go
- /oha/ --> to enter woods
Vowels[]
Barí has six vowels: /a, e, i, ɨ, o, u/.
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u | |
| Close-mid | e | ə | o | |
| Open-mid | unrounded | ɛ | ʌ | |
| rounded | ɔ | |||
| Open | æ | a | ɒ | |
Consonants[]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | c | k | ʔ |
| voiced | b | d | ɟ | g | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | ɸ | s | ç | x | h |
| voiced | β | z | ʝ | ɣ | ɦ | |
| Approximant | ɹ | j | w | |||
| Flap | ⱱ̟ | ɾ | ||||
/p/ occurs in loanwords from Spanish and other indigenous languages.