Consonants[]
Below is a chart of Sikkimese consonants, largely following Yliniemi (2005) and van Driem (1992).
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Retroflex | Alveolo-palatal/ Palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | voiceless | n̥ ན /n/ | ŋ̥ ང /ng/ | ||||
| voiced | m མ /m/ | n ན /n/ | n~ŋ ཉ /ny/ | ŋ ང /ng/ | |||
| Plosive | voiceless unaspirated |
p པ /p/ | t ཏ /t/ | ʈ ཏྲ /tr/ | k ཀ /k/ | ʔ འ /ʔ/ | |
| voiceless aspirated |
pʰ ཕ /ph/ | tʰ ཐ /th/ | ʈʰ ཐྲ /thr/ | kʰ ཁ /kh/ | |||
| voiced | b བ /b/ | d ད /d/ | ɖ དྲ /dr/ | ɡ ག /g/ | |||
| devoiced | p̀ʱ~b̀ɦ བ /p'/ | t̀ʱ~d̀ɦ ད /t'/ | ʈ̀ʱ~ɖ̀ɦ དྲ /tr'/ | k̀ʱ~g̀ɦ ག /k'/ | |||
| Affricate | voiceless unaspirated |
ts ཙ /ts/ | tɕ ཅ /c/ | ||||
| voiceless aspirated |
tsʰ ཚ /tsh/ | tɕʰ ཆ /ch/ | |||||
| voiced | dz ཛ /dz/ | dʑ ཇ /j/ | |||||
| devoiced | tɕ̀ʱ~dʑ̀ɦ ཇ /c'/ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s ས /s/ | ɕ ཤ /sh/ | h ཧ /h/ | |||
| voiced | z ཟ /z/ | ʑ ཞ /zh/ | |||||
| Liquid | voiceless | l̥ ལ /l/ | r̥ ར /r/ | ||||
| voiced | l ལ /l/ | r~ɹ~ɾ ར /r/ | |||||
| Approximant | w ཝ /w/ | j ཡ /y/ | w ཝ /w/ | ||||
Devoiced consonants are pronounced with a slight breathy voice, aspiration, and low pitch. They are remnants of voiced consonants in Classical Tibetan that became devoiced. Likewise, the historical Tibetan phoneme /ny/ is realised as an allophone of /n/ and /ng/, which themselves have mostly lost contrast among speakers.
Vowels[]
Below is a chart of Sikkimese vowels, also largely following Yliniemi (2005).
| Front | Middle | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | unrounded | rounded | |
| Close | i ི /i/ | y ུ /u/ | u ུ /u/ | |
| Mid | e ེ /e/ | ø ོ /o/ | o ོ /o/ | |
| Open | ɛ ེ /e/ | ɐ /a/ | ||
In the Tibetan script, an abugida, the inherent vowel /a/ is unmarked. In the above table, italicised [ɛ] /e/ is an allophone of [e] /e/, confined to appearing after [dʑ] /j/ in closed syllables.