Linguist Blair Rudes attempted to reconstitute the phonology of Quiripi, using the extant documentation, comparison with related Algonquian languages, as "reconstructing forward" from Proto-Algonquian.[1] In Rudes' analysis, Quiripi contained the following consonant phonemes:[2]
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | tʃ | dʒ | k | ɡ | ||||
| Fricative | f | v | θ | ð | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | x | ɣ | h | |
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||
| Rhotic | ʙ | r | ||||||||||
| Approximant | w | ɹ | j | ɰ | ||||||||
| Lateral | l | ʟ | ||||||||||
Quiripi's vowel system as reconstituted by Rudes was similar to that of the other Southern New England Algonquian languages. It consisted of two short vowels /a/ and /ə/, and four long vowels /aː/, /iː/, /uː/, and /ʌ̃/.[2]
| Close | Close-mid | Mid | Open-mid | Open | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | i | ɪ | e | ɛ | æ | |||||
| Central | ə | ɜ | a | ɒ̈ | ||||||
| Back | u | ʊ | o | ʌ | ɔ | ɑ | ɒ | |||