Consonants[]
There are 21 distinct consonant phonemes. The fricative, nasal, lateral and rhotic consonants also distinguish length.
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosives | p | b | t̪ | d̪ | t | d | c | ɟ | k | ɡ |
| Fricatives | f, fː | s, sː | ||||||||
| Nasals | m, mː | n, nː | ɲ, ɲː | ŋ, ŋː | ||||||
| Laterals | l, lː | |||||||||
| Rhotics | r, rː | |||||||||
| Approximants | w | ð | y | |||||||
Vowels[]
There are six distinct vowel phonemes. All six can also occur in sequential (and thus lengthened) form but may change phonetic quality. Stirtz (2012) proposes the following system:
| [-round] | [+round] | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| [-back] | [+back] | ||
| [+ATR] | i | ə | u |
| [-ATR] | ɛ | a | ɔ |
Tone[]
Gaam is a tonal language. There are three level tones, High, Mid and Low, which can be combined to form rising and falling tones. A total of nine tone melodies is possible, all of them contrastive.