Nez Perce phonology

The phonology of Nez Perce includes vowel harmony (which was mentioned in Noam Chomsky & Morris Halle's The Sound Pattern of English), as well as a complex stress system described by Crook (1999).

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Nez Perce

		Bilabial	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar		Uvular		Glottal
			central	lateral		plain	lab.	plain	lab.
Plosive	voiced	b	d			ɡ	(ɡʷ)	ɢ	(ɢʷ)
	plain	p	t			k	(kʷ)	q	(qʷ)	ʔ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ			kʼ	(kʼʷ)	qʼ	(qʼʷ)
Fricative	plain		s	ɬ	( ʃ )	x		χ		h
	affricate		ts	tɬʼ
	glottalized		tsʼ
Sonorant	plain	m	n	l	j		w
	glottalized	mʼ	nʼ	lʼ	jʼ		wʼ

The sounds kʷ, kʼʷ, qʷ, qʼʷ and ʃ only occur in the Downriver dialect.

Vowels

Vowel phonemes of Nez Perce

	Front	Central	Back
High	i iː		u uː
Mid			o oː
Low	æ æː	a aː	ɒ ɒː

Stress is marked with an acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú).

External links

• Nez Perce language