Valian

Phonology

Vowels

Vowel phonemes of 17aug

	Front		Back
	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
Close	i iː	y yː		u uː
Mid	e eː	ø øː	ɤ ɤː	o oː
Open	æ æː		ɑ ɑː

Word and sentence final short vowels are often pronounced slightly longer than their non-final counterparts (e.g. salma 'faith' [ˈsɑlmɑˑ]).

Consonants

Consonant of 17aug

	Labial	Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
		plain	palatalized
Nasal	m	n	(nʲ)			(ŋ)1
Plosive	p	t	(tʲ)			k
Fricative	v	s	(sʲ)			(x)2	h
Approximant		l	(lʲ)3		j
Trill		r

Notes:

1. [ŋ] only occurs as an allophone of [n] before [k].
2. [x] is a word-final allophone of [h] (e.g. rakah 'wound' [ˈrɑg̥ɑx]).
3. [lʲ] is encountered in free variation with [ʎ] in certain varieties of speech (e.g. Sanahta dialect leia 'while' [ʎeiɑˑ~lʲeiɑˑ]).

Consonants may be palatalised; this occurs for p, t, n, l, s before i, e.

Orthography

17aug writes its 18 vowels with 9 different characters, a e i o u ä ë ö ü, doubled to indicate the long version.