Gimi has 6 vowels and 16 consonants.[1] It has voiceless and voiced glottal consonants where related languages have /k/ and /ɡ/. The voiceless glottal is simply a glottal stop [ʔ]. The voiced consonant behaves phonologically like a glottal stop, but does not have full closure. Phonetically it is a creaky-voiced glottal approximant [ʔ̞].
Vowels[]
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| High | i | u |
| Mid | e | o |
| Low | æ | ɑ |
Consonants[]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | ʔ |
| voiced | b | d | ʔ̞ | |
| Nasal | m | n | ||
| Tap/Flap | ʙ | ɾ | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | ɸ | s | h |
| voiced | β | z | ɦ | |
Allophony[]
/p/ occurs word initially only in loanwords.
/b/ can surface as either [b] or [β] in free variation.
/z/ becomes [s] before /ɑ/.
/t/ and /ɾ/ tend to fluctuate with one another word initially.
Syllables[]
The syllable structure is (C)V(G), where G is either /ʔ/ or /ʔ̞/.
Tone[]
The final vowel of a word takes either a level or falling tone. The falling tone is written with an acute accent.
| ak "seed" | ák "armband" | ||
| nimi "bird" | nimí "louse" |