phonology
Kawaba has 17 phonemes: 12 consonants and 5 vowels. These were chosen due to their frequency across the world’s languages and ability to be distinguished clearly. The International Phonetic Alphabet transcriptions given here represent a standard pronunciation, though individuals’ pronunciation can vary as long as each segment is distinct.
consonants
Kawaba has 12 consonants, shown in the table below. these are the 12 most common consonants among languages according to phoible.org, excluding:
- /h/ – as it lacks the usual phonetic features of a consonant and behaviours closer to a manner of phonation. It is difficult to distinguish for speakers of languages that lack it.
- /ŋ/ – as it is restricted to the coda of syllables in many languages. As a coda, it is already an allophone of /n/ before a velar consonant.
Additionally, the voiceless stops are aspirated for speakers of languages that distinguish stops primarily by aspiration rather than voicing.
| labial | coronal | dorsal | |
|---|---|---|---|
| nasal | m | n | |
| plosive | p /pʰ/ | t /tʰ/ | k /kʰ/ |
| b | d | ɡ | |
| fricative | s | ||
| approximant | w | l | j |
vowels
Kawaba has 5 vowels, shown in the table below. These are evenly spaced along the periphery of the vowel space.
- /ä/ is the open central unrounded vowel, between /a/ and /ɑ/
- /e̞/ is the mid front unrounded vowel, between /e/ and /ɛ/
- /o̞/ is the mid back rounded vowel, between /o/ and /ɔ/
| front | central | back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| close | i | u | |
| mid | e /e̞/ | o /o̞/ | |
| open | a /ä/ |
stress
Primary stress falls on the first root of a word, which is the second syllable for words with a prefix. Secondary stress falls on syllables following a hyphen in a compound word. Stressed syllables are pronounced with a higher pitch and longer duration than unstressed syllables.