Stoney phonology

Very little linguistic documentation and descriptive research has been done on Stoney. However, Stoney varieties demonstrate broad phonological similarity with some important divergences.

For example, the following phonemes are reportedly found in Morley Stoney, spoken on the Morley Reserve:

Morley Stoney consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p	t	t̠		k
	voiced		d	d̠		g
Affricate	voiceless			t͡ʃ
	voiced			d͡ʒ
Fricative	voiceless	ɸ	s	ʃ		x	ħ	h
	voiced		z	ʒ		ɣ	ʕ
Nasal		m	n
Approximant		w			j

Morley Stoney vowels

	Front	Central	Back
			unr.	rnd.
High	i, ĩ		ɯ	u, ũ
Mid	e		ɤ	o
Low	æ	a, ã	ɑ	ɒ

For comparison, these phonemes reportedly characterize the Stoney spoken at Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, which maintains the common Siouan three-way contrast between plain, aspirated, and ejective stops:

Alexis Stoney consonants

	Bilabial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Stops	p, pʰ, pʼ	t, tʰ, tʼ		k, kʰ, kʼ		ʔ
Affricates			t͡ʃ, t͡ʃʰ, t͡ʃʼ
Fricatives		s, z	ʃ, ʒ	x, ɣ		h
Nasals	m	n
Glides	w		j

Notice that Alexis Stoney, for example, has innovated contrastive vowel length, which is not found in other Dakotan dialects. Alexis Stoney also has long and nasal mid vowels:

Alexis Stoney vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i, ī, ĩ		u, ū, ũ
Mid	e, ē, ẽ		o, ō, õ
Low		a, ā, ã

External links

• Stoney language