Hantza/Phonology

See also: Hantza alphabet

This article deals with the phonology and phonetics of Hantza and the statements made herein refer to the Karakum dialect as this includes around 53% of native Hantza speakers. For specific traits of other dialects see Hantza dialects. Likewise, prosody is dealt with in a separate article.

Consonant phonemes

There are eighteen consonant phonemes in Hantza.

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Plosive	p b	t d		k	ʔ
Fricative	f	s			h
Affricate		t͡s d͡z
Approx.			j	w
Liquid		r l

Note that the phoneme /g/ is missing in the plosive series.

Those consonants that exhibit allophony are discussed below.

Consonantal allophony

Fricatives

In Hantza, /s/ is typically realised as the retracted [s̠]. This phonetic value is similar to that found in some northern dialects of Dutch. To English speakers it may sound like it is actually the post-alveolar fricative [ʃ]. Indeed, for many speakers /s/ is realised as [ɕ] before /i/. Similarly, for these /ts/ also becomes [tɕ] before in the same environment.

The glottal fricative /h/ is realised differently depending on the vowel that follows it. These allophones are given in the table below:

	Before /a/	Before /e, i/	Before /o, u/
Intervocalic	[ħ̝]	[ç]	[ɦ̝ʷ]
Elsewhere	[x̟]		[ħ̝ʷ]

Note that despite /h/ being referred to as "glottal" it most often not glottal phonetically.

Liquids

The single rhotic in Hantza /r/ also has a great many realisations cross-dialectically; this could be one of [ɹ ~ ɾ ~ r ~ ʀ ~ ʁ ~ χ ~ x]. The pronunciation of /r/ can also differ idiosyncratically from the dialectal norm.

As with the glottal /h/, the rhotic phoneme /r/ is also often labialised before the vowels /o, u/.

The lateral /l/ is realised as a dark [ɫ] when followed by /k, h/ and is a clear [l] elsewhere.

Vowel phonemes

Hantza's vowel inventory is a simple five-vowel system, similar to that of many modern languages, such as Greek and Swahili.

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e	o
Open	a

Vowel length is not phonemic in Hantza and there are no diphthongs.

Vocalic allophony

In most dialects, including the Karakum, vowels are realised qualitatively different when unstressed.

	/a/	/e/	/i/	/o/	/u/
Stressed	[ä]	[e]	[i]	[o]	[ʉ]
Unstressed	[ɐ]	[ɛ]	[ɪ]	[ɔ]	[ʊ̈]

Note that this is not the case for all dialects.