Western Apache phonology

Consonants

There are 29 consonants in Western Apache:

		Bilabial	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Glottal
			central	lateral
Nasal		m	n		ɲ	ŋ
Stop	voiceless	p	t		c	k	ʔ
	voiced	b	ⁿd/d		ɟ	ɡ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		cʰ	kʰ
	ejective	pʼ	tʼ		cʼ	kʼ
Affricate	voiceless		ts	tɬ	tʃ
	voiced		dz	dɮ	dʒ
	aspirated		tsʰ	tɬʰ	tʃʰ
	ejective		tsʼ	tɬʼ	tʃʼ
Fricative	voiceless	ɸ	s	ɬ	ʃ	x	h
	voiced	β	z	ɮ	ʒ	ɣ
Approximant			ɹ	l	j	w

Vowels

There are 16 vowels in Western Apache:

		Front				Central				Back
		Unr.		Rnd.		Unr.		Rnd.		Unr.		Rnd.
		short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	oral	ɪ	iː	ʏ	yː	ɨ	ɨː	ʉ	ʉː			ʊ	uː
	nasal	ɪ̃	ĩː	ʏ̃	ỹː	ɨ̃	ɨ̃ː	ʉ̃	ʉ̃ː			ʊ̃	ũː
Close-mid	oral	e	eː	ø	øː	ɘ	ɘː					o	oː
	nasal	ẽ	ẽː	ø̃	ø̃ː	ɘ̃	ɘ̃ː					õ	õː
Open-mid	oral	ɛ	ɛː					ɞ	ɞː	ʌ	ʌː	ɔ	ɔː
	nasal	ɛ̃	ɛ̃ː					ɞ̃	ɞ̃ː	ʌ̃	ʌ̃ː	ɔ̃	ɔ̃ː
Open	oral	æ	æː			a	aː	ɶ	ɶː	ɑ	ɑː	ɒ	ɒː
	nasal	æ̃	æ̃ː			ã	ãː	ɶ̃	ɶ̃ː	ɑ̃	ɑ̃ː	ɒ̃	ɒ̃ː

An acute accent /á/ represents a high toned accent. Low toned accents are not marked.

Phonetic Semantic signs are divided into two sub-parts: a logographs (donate only one word) and phraseographs (donate one or more words).

Unaffricated stops

Western Apache utilizes unaffricated stops. Willem de Reuse explains, "Unaffricated stop consonants are produced in three locations: bilabial, alveolar, velar. At the alveolar and velar places of articulation, there are three possibilities: aspirated, ejective, and unaspirated. (The voiceless unaspirated alveolars are characteristically realized as taps in intervocalic environments other than stem-initial position) The bilabial stops are more restricted. Ejective bilabial stops do not occur, and aspirated bilabial stops are rarely attested, surfacing primarily, if not exclusively, in borrowed words. The closure for three alveolar stops is voiceless, as indicated by the absence of any energy in the spectrograms during the closure phase."

External links

• Western Apache language