Pinyin | |
---|---|
Region | Northwest Region, Cameroon |
Native speakers | 25,000 (2001) [1] |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | pny |
Glottolog | piny1238 |
Pinyin is a Grassfields language spoken by some 27,000 people in the Northwest Region of Cameroon.
Phoneme | Allophones | Environment | Orthography |
---|---|---|---|
p | p | ⟨p⟩ | |
pʰ | Before /u/ in an open syllable. | ||
b | After /ɴ̩/. | ⟨b⟩ | |
β | Between vowels within a root. | ||
t | t | ⟨t⟩ | |
k | k | Beginning of words and of roots within words, and after /ɴ̩/. | ⟨k⟩ |
ʔ | Only C found at ends of words. | ⟨’⟩ | |
kʷ | kʷ | ⟨kw⟩ | |
l | l | In roots. | ⟨l⟩ |
ɾ | In suffixes. | ⟨r⟩ | |
d | After /ɴ̩/. | ⟨d⟩ | |
ɣ | ɣ | ⟨ɡh⟩ | |
ɡ | After /ɴ̩/. | ⟨ɡ⟩ | |
ɣʷ | ɡʷ | After /ɴ̩/. | ⟨ɡw⟩ |
f | f | ⟨f⟩ | |
s | s | /ts/ after /ɴ̩/. | ⟨s⟩ |
ts | ts | ⟨ts⟩ | |
z | z | ⟨z⟩ | |
dz | After /ɴ̩/. | ||
ʃ | ʃ | /tʃ/ after /ɴ̩/. | ⟨sh⟩ |
tʃ | tʃ | ⟨ch⟩ | |
ʒ | ʒ | ⟨zh⟩ | |
dʒ | After /ɴ̩/. | ⟨j⟩ | |
m | m | ⟨m⟩ | |
n | n | ⟨n⟩ | |
ɲ | ɲ | ⟨ny⟩ | |
ŋ | ŋ | ⟨ŋ⟩ | |
N̩ | m̩ n̩ ŋ̍ | Homorganic with following C. Carries tone. | ⟨m⟩, ⟨n⟩ |
w | w | ⟨w⟩ | |
ɥ | ɥ | ⟨ẅ⟩ | |
j | j | ⟨y⟩ |
Sequences are:
All noun and verb roots begin with a consonant; initial vowels are necessarily prefixes. Only /a,ɨ/ occur in prefixes or at the beginning of words, and only /ə/ occurs in suffixes. /ɨ,y/ do not occur at the ends of words.
Phoneme | Orthography |
---|---|
i | i |
y | ʉ |
ɛ | e |
a | a |
ɔ | o |
u | u |
ə | ə |
ɨ | ɨ |
All known long vowels may occur medially or at ends of words, none at the beginning, though long /ɛ,y/ are not attested. Long vowels are written double: aa, əə, ii, ‿ɨɨ, oo, uu. Diphthongs ie, iə, ʉə, ɨə, uə take a single tone.
Tones are high, mid, low, rising, falling. They are written as in IPA, apart from low, which is not written: á ā a ǎ â. Falling tone is largely confined to suffixes, and rising tone is rare, found only on a few nouns such as tǎ 'father'.
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