The phonology of Yoy, according to Phakkahn (2017).
Consonants[]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | Aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | cʰ | kʰ | |
| Voiceless | p | t | c | k | ʔ | |
| Voiced | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | ||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Fricative | Voiceless | ɸ | s | x | h | |
| Voiced | β | z | ɣ | |||
| Affricate | tɕ | |||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | ʟ | ||
Only /p t k ʔ m n ŋ j w/ occur in word-final position. Yoy also has six initial consonant clusters which are /tw-/, /kw-/, /kw-/, /sw-/, /hw-/, and /bw-/.
Some words show alternate pronunciations between the initial syllable consonants:
- /jaːk⁵/ ~ /ɲaːk⁵/ to want
- /jaːw²/ ~ /ɲaːw²/ long
- /joːj⁴/ ~ /ɲoːj⁴/ Yoy
Vowels[]
| Front | Central | Back | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| unr. | rnd. | |||||||
| short | long | short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| Close | i | iː | ɨ | ɨː | ɯ | ɯː | u | uː |
| Close-mid | e | eː | ɤ | ɤː | o | oː | ||
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɛː | ɔ | ɔː | ||||
| Open | æ | æː | a | aː | ɑ | ɑː | ||
| i | a | ɯ | u | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | ia | ɯa | ua | |
| ɯ | aɯ |
Yoy has two different phonemic vowel lengths. There are nine short vowels and nine long vowels. In the word-final open syllables, there is no contrast between short and long vowels, but in closed syllables and non-final open syllables, short and long vowels are distinctive.
Tones[]
Yoy has five phonologically distinctive tones in non-checked syllables.[what are they?] Checked syllables in Yoy can carry only tone 1 (mid-leveled tone), tone 2 (high-rising tone), and tone 5 (low-falling creaky).