Suwaash

Phonology

The following describes Amisheg (Standard Sowaazh) phonology.

Consonants

Amisheg has a large consonant inventory of 33 consonants:

Consonant phonemes in Amisheg

		Labial	Dental	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m /m/	n /n̪/		ny /ɲ/
Stop	tenuis	b /p/	d /t̪/			g /k/	ɂ /ʔ/
	aspirated	p /pʰ/	t /t̪ʰ/			k /kʰ/
	ejective		t' /t̪ʼ/			k' /kʼ/
Affricate	tenuis		j /t̪s̪/	jh /tʂ/	jy /tɕ/
	aspirated		c /t̪s̪ʰ/	ch /tʂʰ/	cy /tɕʰ/
	ejective		c' /t̪s̪ʼ/	ch' /tʂʼ/	cy' /tɕʼ/
Fricative	fortis		s /s̪/	sh /ʂ/	sy /ɕ/	kh /x/	h /h/
	lenis		z /s̪/	zh /ʐ/	zy /ʑ/	gh /ɣ/
Approximant		w /w/	l /l/		y, ly /j/

/mj pj pʰj/ are allowed before vowels.

Notes

All consonants in Amisheg are long, compared to English and other Sowaazh dialects: with plain stops the hold is longer, with aspirated stops the aspiration is longer, and with affricates the frication is longer. The voice onset time of the aspirated and ejective stops is twice as long as that found in most other languages.

Vowels

Amisheg has only 4 vowel qualities, although there is phonemic vowel length and nasality.

Amisheg oral vowels

	Front		Back
	short	long	short	long
Close	i, į	ii, įį	u, ų	uu, ųų
Open	e, ę	ee, ęę	a, ą	aa, ąą

Morphology

Suwaazh morphology is inspired by similarities between Sino-Tibetan and Navajo morphology.

Verbs

The root

A Suwaazh verb root consists of an obligatory initial, a vowel which may ablaut, and an optional final. Final consonants are restricted to ⟨b d j z~s jh zh~sh jy zy~sy g ɂ kh gh h l n⟩; the -n final may not follow a nasal vowel.