Consonants[]
There are 47 consonant sounds:
| Bilabial | Dental | Inter- dental |
Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| central | lateral | plain | labial | ||||||||
| Nasal | plain | m | n | ||||||||
| voiceless | n̥ | ||||||||||
| glottalized | nʼ | ||||||||||
| Plosive | voiced | b | |||||||||
| unaspirated | t | k | kʷ | q | |||||||
| aspirated | tʰ | kʰ | kʷʰ | qʰ | |||||||
| ejective | tʼ | kʼ | kʼʷ | qʼ | ʔ | ||||||
| Affricate | unaspirated | ts | tɬ | tθ | tʃ | ||||||
| aspirated | tsʰ | tɬʰ | tθʰ | tʃʰ | |||||||
| ejective | tsʼ | tɬʼ | tθʼ | tʃʼ | |||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | ɬ | θ | (ʃ) | x | xʷ | χ | h | ||
| voiced | z | ɮ | ð | (ʒ) | ɣ | ɣʷ | ʁ | ||||
| Approximant | j | w | |||||||||
Phonemes /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ are very limited in use and may or may not be phonemes.
Vowels[]
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | ||
| ɪ | ʊ | |||
| Mid | ɛ | ə | ʌ | o |
| Open | ɑ | |||
Phonological processes[]
- Vowel flattening.
- Consonant harmony
- Vowel nasalization
- Vowel laxing