Editing Burushaski (section)

== Phonology ==

=== Vowels ===

Burushaski primarily has five vowels, /i e a o u/. There are two sets of long vowels, distinguished by whether it is the first or the second mora that bears a stress or higher pitch. Various contractions result in long vowels; stressed vowels (marked with acute accents in Berger's transcription) tend to be longer and less "open" than unstressed ones ({{IPA|[i e a o u]}} as opposed to {{IPA|[ɪ ɛ ʌ ɔ ʊ]}}). Some have described this as an intentional utterance of a rising tone or a falling tone. For example, a word ''óosanam'' {{#invoke:lang|lang|bsk|{{Script/Arabic|اوسَنَم}}}} ‘i made them say’ has a falling tone and the stress is on first mora. Another word, ''oósanam'' {{#invoke:lang|lang|bsk|{{Script/Arabic|اݹسَنَم}}}} ‘i did not say’ has a rising tone and stress is on the second mora.<ref name="phonology">Piar, Karim. 2012. « Phonological Sketch of the Hunza Dialect of Burushaski: The CVX
Theory and Burushaski Syllable Structure ». University of Texas. [https://www.academia.edu/10829671/Phonological_Sketch_of_the_Hunza_Dialect_of_Burushaski]</ref>

Long vowels only ever appear in stressed syllables, and will thus carry one tone or the other.<ref name="phonology" />

As for short vowels, [[mid vowel]]s and [[open vowel]]s [e], [o], [a] can appear in either stressed syllables or [[Unstressed syllable|unstressed syllables]]. Short [[close vowel]]s [i] and [u] usually only appear in unstressed syllables. Furthermore, the pair [i] and [u] alternate with [e] and [o] respectively in a [[stressed syllable]].<ref name="phonology" />{{Clarify|date=October 2024}}

{| class="wikitable" style=text-align:center
! !! [[Front vowel|Front]] !! [[Central vowel|Central]]
![[Back vowel|Back]]
|-
! [[Close vowel|Close]]
|{{IPAlink|i iː}}
|
|{{IPAlink|u uː}}
|-
![[Mid vowel|Mid]]
|{{IPAlink|e eː}}
|
|{{IPAlink|o oː}}
|-
![[Open vowel|Open]]
|
|{{IPAlink|a aː}}
|
|}

All vowels have nasal counterparts in Hunza (in some expressive words) and in Nager (also in proper names and a few other words).

=== Consonants ===

Berger (1998) finds the following consonants to be [[Phoneme|phonemic]], shown below in the [[help:IPA|IPA]] and in his romanization scheme:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
! colspan="2" |
! [[Bilabial consonant|Bilabial]]
! [[Dental consonant|Dental]]/<br />[[Alveolar consonant|Alveolar]]
! [[Alveolo-palatal consonant|(Alveolo-)<br />palatal]]
! [[Retroflex consonant|Retroflex]]
! [[Velar consonant|Velar]]
! [[Uvular consonant|Uvular]]
! [[Glottal consonant|Glottal]]
|-
! colspan="2" |[[Nasal consonant|Nasal]]
| {{IPA link|m}} {{grapheme|m}}
| {{IPA link|n}} {{grapheme|n}}
|
|
| {{IPA link|ŋ}} {{grapheme|ṅ}}
|
|
|-
! rowspan="3" | [[Plosive]]
!<small>[[Aspiration (phonetics)|aspirated]]</small>
| {{IPA link|pʰ}} {{grapheme|ph}}{{r|footnote1|group=decimal}}
| {{IPA link|tʰ}} {{grapheme|th}}
|
| {{IPA link|ʈʰ}} {{grapheme|ṭh}}
| {{IPA link|kʰ}} {{grapheme|kh}}
| {{IPA link|qʰ}} {{grapheme|qh}}{{r|footnote2|group=decimal}}
|
|-
!<small>[[voicelessness|voiceless]]</small>
| {{IPA link|p}} {{grapheme|p}}
| {{IPA link|t}} {{grapheme|t}}
|
| {{IPA link|ʈ}} {{grapheme|ṭ}}
| {{IPA link|k}} {{grapheme|k}}
| {{IPA link|q}} {{grapheme|q}}
|
|-
! <small>[[Voice (phonetics)|voiced]]</small>
| {{IPA link|b}} {{grapheme|b}}
| {{IPA link|d}} {{grapheme|d}}
|
| {{IPA link|ɖ}} {{grapheme|ḍ}}
| {{IPA link|ɡ}} {{grapheme|g}}
|
|
|-
! rowspan="3" | [[Affricate]]
! <small>[[aspiration (phonetics)|aspirated]]</small>{{r|footnote3|group=decimal}}
|
| {{IPA link|t͡sʰ}} {{grapheme|ch}}
| {{IPA link|t͡ɕʰ}} {{grapheme|ćh}}
| {{IPA link|ʈ͡ʂʰ}} {{grapheme|c̣h}}
|
|
|
|-
! <small>[[voicelessness|voiceless]]</small>
|
| {{IPA link|t͡s}} {{grapheme|c}}
| {{IPA link|t͡ɕ}} {{grapheme|ć}}
| {{IPA link|ʈ͡ʂ}} {{grapheme|c̣}}
|
|
|
|-
!<small>[[voice (phonetics)|voiced]]</small>
|
|
| {{IPA link|d͡ʑ}} {{grapheme|j}}{{r|footnote4|group=decimal}}
| {{IPA link|ɖ͡ʐ}} {{grapheme|j̣}}{{r|footnote5|group=decimal}}
|
|
|
|-
! rowspan="2" |[[Fricative consonant|Fricative]]
!<small>[[Voicelessness|voiceless]]</small>
|
| {{IPA link|s}} {{grapheme|s}}
| {{IPA link|ɕ}} {{grapheme|ś}}
| {{IPA link|ʂ}} {{grapheme|ṣ}}
|
|
| {{IPA link|h}} {{grapheme|h}}
|-
!<small>[[voice (phonetics)|voiced]]</small>
|
| {{IPA link|z}} {{grapheme|z}}
|
|
|
| {{IPA link|ʁ}} {{grapheme|ġ}}
|
|-
! colspan="2" | [[Trill consonant|Trill]]
|
| {{IPA link|r}} {{grapheme|r}}
|
|
|
|
|
|-
! colspan="2" |[[Approximant]]
|
| {{IPA link|l}} {{grapheme|l}}
| {{IPA link|j}} {{grapheme|y}}{{r|footnote6|group=decimal}}
| {{IPA link|ɻ}} {{grapheme|ỵ}}{{r|footnote7|group=decimal}}
| {{IPA link|w}} {{grapheme|w}}{{r|footnote6|group=decimal}}
|
|
|}
Notes:
{{reflist |group=decimal |refs=
<ref name=footnote1>Pronunciation varies: {{IPA|[pʰ] ~ [p͡f] ~ [f]}}.</ref>
<ref name=footnote2>Pronunciation varies: {{IPA|[qʰ] ~ [q͡χ] ~ [χ]}}.</ref>
<ref name=footnote3>The Yasin dialect lacks aspirated affricates and uses the plain ones instead.</ref>
<ref name=footnote4>Sometimes pronounced {{IPA|[ʑ]}}.</ref>
<ref name=footnote5>Sometimes pronounced {{IPA|[ʐ]}}.</ref>
<ref name=footnote6>Berger (1998) regards {{IPA|[w]}} and {{IPA|[j]}} as allophones of /u/ and /i/ that occur in front of stressed vowels.</ref>
<ref name=footnote7>This phoneme has various pronunciations, all of which are rare sounds cross-linguistically. Descriptions include: "a voiced retroflex sibilant with simultaneous dorso-palatal narrowing" (apparently {{IPA|[ʐʲ]}}) (Berger 1998); "a fricative ''r'', pronounced with the tongue in the retroflex ('cerebral') position" (apparently {{IPA|[ɻ̝]/[ʐ̞]}}, a sound which also occurs in [[Standard Chinese]], written ''r'' in [[Pinyin]]) (Morgenstierne 1945); and "a curious sound whose phonetic realizations vary from a retroflex, spirantized glide to a retroflex velarized spirant" (Anderson forthcoming). In any case, it does not occur in the Yasin dialect, and in Hunza and Nager it does not occur at the beginning of words.</ref>
}}