Sounds of Navajo

Here is an introduction to the sound system of Navajo.

Vowels

Inventory

	Front	Central	Back
			Unrounded	Rounded
High	i, i:, ĩ, ĩ:		ɯ, ɯ:, ɯ̃, ɯ̃:	u, u:, ũ, ũ:
Mid High	e, e:		ɤ, ɤ:	o, o:
Mid Low	ɛ, ɛ:, ɛ̃, ɛ̃:			ɔ, ɔ:, ɔ̃, ɔ̃:
High		a, a:, ã, ã:

The nine-way distinction demonstrated above is generally accepted. However, some scholars (Ladefoged et al. 1998, Gillies 1993) note that the high back unrounded vowel may be merging with [u] and/or [ɤ] in some dialects.

Diphthongs

There are some diphthongs.

Nasality

Some vowels are nasal.

Length

Long vowels are about twice as long as short vowels in the same environment.

Consonants

Inventory

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal		Velarized	Velar	Glottal
				Coronal	Dorsal
Stop	pʰ, p	t̪ʰ, t̪		tʲʰ, tʲ	kʲʰ, kʲ	kʰ, k
Nasal	m		n	ɲ		nˠ
Fricative	f, v		s	ʃ	ç, ʝ	x, ɣ		h
Lateral			l	lʲ		l̪ˠ
Rhotic			ɾ	ɾʲ		rˠ
Approximant				j

Sonorants

	Tense	Lax
Broad	L	l
Slender	L'	l'

External Links

• http://www.sas.rochester.edu/lin/DeneSpeechAtlas/

References

- Dene Speech Atlas