This article discusses the phonology of the Inuit languages. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Inuktitut dialects of Canada.
Most Inuit varieties have fifteen consonants and three vowel qualities (with phonemic length distinctions for each). Although Inupiatun and Qawiaraq have retroflex consonants, retroflexes have otherwise disappeared in all the Canadian and Greenlandic dialects.
Vowels[]
Almost all dialects of Inuktitut have only three basic vowels and make a phonemic distinction between short and long vowels. In Inuujingajut (the standard alphabet of Nunavut) long vowels are written as a double vowel.
| IPA | Inuujingajut |
|---|---|
| /a/ | a |
| /aː/ | aa |
| /i/ | i |
| /iː/ | ii |
| /u/ | u |
| /uː/ | uu |
In western Alaska, Qawiaraq and to some degree the Malimiutun variant of Inupiatun retains an additional vowel /ə/ which was present in proto-Inuit and is still present in Yupik, but which has become /i/ or sometimes /a/ in all other dialects. Thus, the common Inuktitut word for water – imiq – is emeq (/əməq/) in Qawiaraq.
Furthermore, many diphthongs in the Alaskan dialects have merged, suggesting the beginnings of a new more complex vowel scheme with more than three distinct vowels. This phenomenon is particularly noticeable in the Kobuk area, where the diphthongs /ua/ and /au/ are now both pronounced [ɔ]. Other diphthongs are also affected.
In contrast to the larger number of vowel contrasts in Alaskan dialects, in the dialect of northwest Greenland (particularly Upernavik), the phoneme /u/ has been replaced by /i/ in many contexts.
Otherwise, the three-vowel scheme described above holds for all of the Inuktitut dialects.
West Greenlandic vowels have a very wide range of allophones:
- /a/ varies between [e̞], [ɛ], [æ], [a̠], [ä] and [ɑ̟]. The last allophone appears before and especially between uvulars.
- /i/ varies between [i], [ɪ̟], [e̠], [e̽] and [ə]. The last allophone appears before and especially between uvulars.
- /u/ varies between [u̟], [u], [ʊ̠], [o] and [o̞]. The last allophone appears before and especially between uvulars.
Consonants[]
The Nunavut dialects of Inuktitut have fifteen distinct consonants, though some have more.
| Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| cen. | lat. | |||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | q | |||
| voiced | (ɟ) | ɡ | ||||||
| Continuant | voiced | v | l | (ʐ) | j | ʁ | ||
| voiceless | s | ɬ | (ʂ) | |||||
Notes:
- /ʂ/ and /ʐ/ appear only in Inupiatun.
- /ɟ/ appears only in Natsilingmiutut. Everywhere else it has merged with /j/; it is not written with a separate letter.
- /ɡ/ is realized as voiced velar fricative [ɣ] in Siglitun. In other dialects, this realization may also be found between vowels or vowels and approximants.
- /ʁ/ assimilates to preceding nasal consonants by being realized as a uvular nasal [ɴ]. It is written ⟨r⟩ in Inuujingajut orthography.