Orthography of South Slavey

The orthography presented on this page is the standard orthography recommended by the South Slavey Standardization Committee as reported in the Dictionary of the Verbs of South Slavey (Second Edition, 2004). In the tables on this page, this standard orthography is given in bold on the left; next to it is the IPA equivalent.

Consonants

South Slavey has around forty-five consonants, shown in Table 1.

Table 1: South Slavey Consonants

		Labial	Interdental	Alveolar	Lateral	Palato-alveolar	Velar		Glottal
		Labial	Interdental	Alveolar	Lateral	Palato-alveolar	Plain	Labialized	Glottal
Nasal		m [m]		n [n]
Stop	Nasalized	mb [mb]		nd [nd]
	Unaspirated	b [b]		d [d]			g [g]		ʼ [ʔ]
	Velar Affrication	p [p^h]		t [tx]			k [kx]	kw [kx^w]
	Ejective	pʼ [pʼ]		tʼ [tʼ]			kʼ [kʼ]
Affricate	Voiced		ddh [dð]	dz [dz]	dl [dl]	j [dʒ]
	Aspirated		tth [tθ^h]	ts [ts^h]	tłʼ [tɬ^h]	ch [tʃ^h]
	Ejective		tthʼ [tθʼ]	tsʼ [tsʼ]	tłʼ [tɬʼ]	chʼ [tʃʼ]
Fricative	Voiceless	f [f]	th [θ]	s [s]	ł [ɬ]	sh [ʃ]	x [x]		h [h]
Fricative	Voiced	v [v]	dh [ð]	z [z]	l [l]	zh [ʒ]	gh [ɣ]	ghw [ɣ^w]
Resonant	Plain			r [ɾ]		y [j]	w [w]
Resonant	Glottalized						wʼ [wʼ]

The sounds m and mb and n and nd may be alternants of each other. In the Dene languages that we have studied, the stops t and k are affricates [tx] and [kx], rather than plain aspirated stops. Only the affricates tth [tθʰ], ts [tsʰ], tł [tɬʰ], and ch [tʃʰ] are truly aspirated.

Vowels

South Slavey has a five vowel system. South Slavey vowels may be long or short, oral or nasalized, and carry tone. Nasal vowels are marked with an ogonek (ą). High tone is marked with an acute accent (á), while low tone is unmarked. Vowels may have both tonal and nasal marking (ą́). In addition to its five cardinal vowels, South Slavey is also reported to have a central vowel, the schwa ə [ə]. Table 2 below shows the vowel system of South Slavey. Different dialects may have slightly different sets of vowels.

Table 2: South Slavey Vowels

	Front		Back
High	i [i]		u [u]
Mid	e [ɛ]	ə [ə]	o [o]
Low	a [ɑ]

Sources

2018-08-06