Proto-Alri phonology

Main article: Proto-Alri

This page gives an extensive description of Proto-Alri phonological features.

Consonants

The consonant system distinguishes 20 phonemes, traditionally arranged in the following scheme:

		IPA			Transcription
plosive	voiceless	[p]	[k]	[t]	p	k	t
	aspirated	[pʰ]	[kʰ]	[tʰ]	pʰ	kʰ	tʰ
	pharyngeal		[ʡ]			ʡ
affricate		[pɸ]	[kx]	[tɹ̝̊]	ṗ	k̇	ṫ
retroflex		[ʈ]	[ʂ]	[ɽ]	ʈ	ʂ	ɽ
nasal		[m]		[n]	m		n
liquid		[r]		[l]	r		l
fricative	sibilant		[s]			s
approximant		[j]		[w]	j		w

The group of the plosive consonants distinguishes three sub-groups: voiceless, aspirated, and pharyngeal, even though the voiced sub-group includes only the phoneme [ʡ]. No plosive phoneme display a distinction in voicing.

The group of the nasal and of the liquid consonants is slighty poorer, but anyway quite developed. The presence of a developed group of a group of retroflex and affricate consonant is particularly noteworthy.

The group of the fricative consonant is remarkably scarce, with a single sibilant phoneme, [s]. The phonemes [j] and [w] can have both a semivocalic and a full consonantal value.

Vowels

There are 7 vocalic phonemes. No vowel makes any distinction neither in length nor in tone:

IPA					Transcription
[i]				[u]	i				u
	[e]		[o]			e		o
		[ə]					ə
		[a]					a

The vocalic system is typologically simple and essentially balanced, with the additional central phoneme, [ə].