Eβmiʔ phonology

Main article: Eβmiʔ

This page gives an extensive description of Eβmiʔ phonological features.

Consonants

The consonant system distinguishes 29 phonemes, traditionally arranged in the following scheme:

		IPA			Transcription
plosive	voiced	[b]	[g]	[d]	b	g	d
	retroflex	[ʈ]		[ɖ]	ʈ		ɖ
	glottal		[ʔ]			ʔ
nasal		[m]		[n]	m		n
liquid		[r]		[l]	r		l
		[ɽ]		[ʎ]	ɽ		ʎ
fricative	sibilant		[s]			s
	retroflex		[ʂ]			ʂ
	alveolar	[ʃ]		[ʒ]	š		ž
	velar	[ɣ]		[x]	ɣ		x
	glottal		[ɦ]			h
	labio-dental		[v]			v
	palatal	[ç]		[ʝ]	ç		ʝ
	bilabial		[β]			β
	dental		[ð]			ð
affricate		[ʧ]		[ʤ]	č		ğ
approximant		[j]		[w]	j		w

The group of the plosive consonants is essentially rich and distinguishes three sub-groups: voiced, retroflex and glottal. It remarkably lacks a group of voiceless consonants.

The groups of the nasal and of the liquid consonants are only slighty poorer, but anyway quite developed. The group of the liquid consonants noticeably includes a retroflex phoneme, [ɽ].

The group of the fricative consonants is overall very well developed and particularly rich in points of articulation, with some distinctions between voiced and voiceless phonemes.

There are two affricate consonants, [ʧ] and [ʤ]. The phonemes [j] and [w] can have both a semivocalic and a full consonantal value.

Vowels

There are 11 vocalic phonemes. No vowel makes any distinction either in length or in tone:

IPA

Transcription

[i]

[u]

i

u

[ɪ]

[ʊ]

y

ü

[e]

[o]

e

o

[ɛ]

[œ]

[ʌ]

[ɔ]

ɛ

ö

å

ɔ

[æ]

[ɑ]

ä

ɑ

[a]

a