Phonology
As with many Athabaskan languages, Tolowa features contrasting aspirated, unaspirated, and ejective stops, as well as contrasting vowel length and nasality. Tolowa is not fully tonal, but instead has a pitch accent. [4] This is typical of the Pacific Coast Athabaskan languages.
Consonants
/ɬ/ is affricated to [ tɬ ] after vowels. /j/ is realized as [ j̃ ] after nasal vowels. [4]
Vowels
Tolowa vowels have some degree of allophonicity. /u/ and /o/ are in free variation; [ ɔ ] is an allophone of /a/ after palatals and velars; /ə/ is raised to [ ɨ ] near palatals and to [ ʉ ] before velars, and is nasalized ([ə̃]) before nasal consonants. [4] In addition, Tolowa has three diphthongs: [ai], [au], and [ui]. [5]
Alphabet
Syllables are usually separated with an en dash (-) for clarity. The 1997 Tolowa Dee-niʼ alphabet (below) replaces the special characters ą, į, ɨ, ł, ų, and ʉ with a~, i~, lh, u~ and v, respectively. Note that the distinction between ɨ and ʉ is lost.
Tolowa Dee-niʼ alphabet [5] | Spelling | a | aa | a~ | aa~ | b | ch | chʼ | d | dr | e | ee | g | gh | gw | h | i | ii | i~ | ii~ | kʼ | krʼ | l | lh | m | n | p | s | sh | sr | t | t’ | trʼ | tsʼ | u | uu | u~ | uu~ | v | w | x | xw | y | ʼ |
|---|
| Phoneme | a | aː | ã | ãː | p | tʃʰ | tʃʼ | t | tʃ | e | eː | k | ɣ | kʷ | h | i | iː | ĩ | ĩː | kʼ | kʷʼ | l | ɬ | m | n | pʰ | s | ʃ | ʂ | tʰ | t’ | ʈʂʼ | tsʼ | u | uː | ũ | ũː | ə | w | x | xʷ | j | ʔ |
|---|
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