Kiowa segments

Consonants

The 23 consonants of Kiowa:

		Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Stop	voiced	b	d			ɡ
	voiceless	p	t	ts		k	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ			kʰ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ	tsʼ		kʼ
Fricative	voiced			z
	voiceless			s	ç		h
Approximant		(w)	l		j

In the orthography (used here) of the native Kiowa speaker, Parker McKenzie, who collaborated with both J.P. Harrington and Laurel Watkins, these are represented as below (parenthetic letters are used only at the end of the syllable):

		Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n
Stop	voiced	b	d			g
	voiceless	f (p)	j (t)	ch		c (k)	(t)
	aspirated	p	t			k
	ejective	v	th	x		q
Fricative	voiced			z
	voiceless			s	sy		h
Approximant		w	l		y

Vowels

Kiowa has six contrasting vowel qualities with three heights and a front-back distinction. Additionally, there is an oral-nasal contrast on all six vowels. For example, nasality is the only difference between ā́u /ʔɔ́ː/ ('to gamble') and ā́u /ʔɔ̃́ː/ ('to give').

Oral vowels

	Front	Back
High	i	u
Mid	e	o
Low	a	ɔ

Nasal vowels

	Front	Back
High	ĩ	ũ
Mid	ẽ	õ
Low	ã	ɔ̃

External links

• Kiowa phonology