Cärähə phonology

Main article: Cärähə

This page gives an extensive description of Cärähə phonological features.

Consonants

The consonant system distinguishes 19 phonemes, traditionally arranged in the following scheme:

		IPA			Transcription
plosive	voiceless	[p]	[k]	[t]	p	k	t
	voiced	[b]	[d]	[g]	b	d	g
	palatal	[c]		[ɟ]	c		ǰ
nasal		[m]		[n]	m		n
liquid			[r]			r
fricative	sibilant	[s]		[ɕ]	s		ɕ
	glottal		[h]			h
	velar		[x]			x
	palatal	[ç]		[ʝ]	ç		ɟ
	approximant	[j]		[w]	j		w

The group of the plosive consonants distinguishes three sub-groups: voiceless, voiced, and palatal.

The groups of the nasal and of the liquid consonants are considerably poorer, with the relevant presence of a single liquid phoneme, [r].

The group of the fricative consonants is not abundant, but it has a certain amount of in points of articulation, with no distinction between some voiced and voiceless phonemes. The phonemes [j] and [w] have a full consonantal value and they are never regarded as semivowels.

Vowels

There are 9 vocalic phonemes, which display other forms of distinction:

IPA						Transcription
[i]	[iː]			[uː]		i	ī			u
[ʏ]						ü
[e]				[o]		e				o
[œ]	[œː]	[a]				ö	ő	a
	[æ]						ä
		[a]						a

2 vowels have a short form and a long form: [i] - [iː] and [œ] - [œː]. However, length is not deemed by the speakers as a distinctive feature of the same phoneme. These pairs are regarded as four fully independent phonemes, thus bringing the amount of distinguished vowels to 11.

The imbalance between the amount of front and back vowels is easily noticeable.