Tillamook phonology

Vowels

	Front	Back
High	i	u /ə/
Mid	e /ɛ/	o /ɔ/
Low	æ	a /ɑ/

Consonants

		Alveolar		Postalveolar / palatal	Velar		Uvular		Glottal
		Central	Lateral		Unrounded	"Rounded"	Unrnd.	"Rnd."
Stop	plain	t			k	kᵓ	q	qᵓ	ʔ
	Ejective	tʼ			kʼ	kᵓʼ	qʼ	qᵓʼ
	voiced	d			ɡ	ɡᵓ	ɢ	ɢᵓ
Affricate	plain	t͡s		t͡ʃ
	Ejective	t͡sʼ	t͡ɬʼ	t͡ʃʼ
	voiced	d͡z		d͡ʒ
Fricative	voiceless	s	ɬ	ʃ	x	xᵓ	χ	χᵓ	h
	voiced	z	ɮ	ʒ	ɣ	ɣᵓ	ʁ	ʁᵓ	ɦ
Nasal		n		ɲ	ŋ	ŋᵓ	ɴ	ɴᵓ
Approximant		ɹ	l	j	ɰ	ɰᵓ

Internal rounding

The so-called "rounded" consonants (traditionally marked with the diacritic ⟨ʷ⟩, but here indicated with ⟨ᵓ⟩), including rounded vowels and ⟨w⟩ (/ɰᵓ/), are not actually labialized. The acoustic effect of labialization is created entirely inside the mouth by cupping the tongue. Uvulars with this distinctive internal rounding have "a kind of ɔ timbre" while "rounded" front velars have ɯ coloring. These contrast and oppose otherwise very similar segments having ɛ or ɪ coloring—the "unrounded" consonants.

/w/ is also formed with this internal rounding instead of true labialization, making it akin to [ɰ]. So are vowel sounds formerly written as /o/ or /u/, which are best characterized as the diphthong /əɰ/ with increasing internal rounding.

External links

• Tillamook language