Editing Burushaski (section)

=== 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).