Kanakanabu language description

There are 14 different consonant phonemes, containing only voiceless plosives within Kanakanavu. Adequate descriptions of liquid consonants become a challenge within Kanakanavu. It also contains 6 vowels plus diphthongs and triphthongs. Vowel length is often not clear if distinctive or not, as well as speakers pronouncing vowel phonemes with variance. As most Austronesian and Formosan languages, Kanakanavu has the syllable structure C V. Very few, even simple words, contain less than three to four syllables.

Alphabet

A, C, E, I, K, L, M, N, Ng, O, P, R, S, T, U, Ʉ, V, ' /ʔ.

C represents the phoneme /c/.

L represents the phonemes /ɗ/ and /ɽ/.

P represents both /ɓ/ and /p/.

/ɫ/ is spelled as hl.

Phonology

Consonants

Kanakanabu consonants

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m		n			ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Stop	p ɓ ⟨p⟩		t	ɖ ⟨l⟩	c	k	ʔ ⟨'⟩
Affricate
Fricative	f v		s z				h
Rhotic			ɽ
Approximant	w		ɫ ⟨hl⟩	ɭ	j ⟨y⟩

Vowels

Kanakanabu vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ʉ	u
Mid	e	ə	o
Open		a

External links

• Kanakanabu language