Thahi phonology

Main article: Thahi

This page gives an extensive description of Thahi phonological features.

Consonants

The consonant system distinguishes 22 phonemes, traditionally arranged in the following scheme:

		IPA			Transcription
plosive	voiced	[b]	[g]	[d]	b	g	d
	voiced aspirated	[bʰ]	[gʰ]	[dʰ]	bh	gh	dh
	voiceless aspirated	[pʰ]	[kʰ]	[tʰ]	ph	kh	th
	uvular		[q]			q
	glottal		[ʔ]			ʔ
nasal		[m]	[n]	[ɴ]	m	n	ṅ
liquid		[r]		[l]	r		l
fricative	sibilant		[s]			s
	labio-dental		[f]			f
	dental		[θ]			θ
	glottal		[h]			h
	bilabial		[β]			β
approximant			[j]			j

The group of the plosive consonants is essentially rich and distinguishes five sub-groups: voiced, voiced aspirated, voiceless aspirated, uvular and glottal, even though the latter two sub-groups include only one phoneme each. It remarkably lacks a group of voiceless unaspirated consonants.

The groups of the nasal and of the liquid consonants are noticeably poorer, but anyway quite developed. The group of the nasal consonants notably includes the phoneme [ɴ].

The group of the fricative consonants is overall well developed, with several places of articulation. None of the sub-groups has a distinction between voiced and voiceless phonemes.

There is no affricate consonant. The phoneme [j] can have both a semivocalic and a full consonantal value.

Vowels

There are 7 vocalic phonemes.

IPA

Transcription

[i]

[u]

i

u

[ɛ]

[ɔ]

e

o

[æ]

[œ]

ä

ö

[a]

a

No vowel makes any distinction in length, but all vocalic phonemes are framed in an elaborate tonal system, with multiple tone distinctions. This tonal system is thoroughly described below.

Tones

All vowels make a distinction among six different tones, with the exception of the phonemes [æ] and [œ], which distinguish only four different tones. Tone is a clearly distinctive feature:

jò - jô
I - we

Using the vowel [a] as an example, the tones, and their graphic transcription, are:

• a: [a³³], mid tone.
• à: [a⁵³], falling tone.
• á: [a¹³], rising lower tone.
• á̱: [a²³], rising higher tone.
• â: [a³⁵³], rising-falling lower or apical lower tone.
• â: [a⁴⁵³], rising-falling higher or apical higher tone.

The mid tone is usually regarded as a neutral tone, not being graphically expressed by any diacritic mark. The rising and the falling tones are regarded as linear tones. The rising-falling and the falling-rising tones are regarded as spike tones.

The vowels [æ] and [œ] are called weak vowels, since they can express only four tones: the mid tone, the falling tone, the rising lower tone and the rising higher tone. Thus, they cannot express any spike tone.