Ngmẹev tshigz

Ngmẹev Tshig [ŋ͡mɛ͡e˩˧ t͡sʰḭ˧˩]

Consonants
Ngmẹev tshig has a rather large consonant inventory, characterized by prenasalized stops, voiceless nasals, a low proportion of fricatives, and a wide array of places of articulation, including retroflexes, uvulars, and doubly articulated labial-velars. In total, Ngmẹev tshig has between 40 and 45 consonants, depending on the dialect.

The retroflex series occurs only in some dialects. In others, they have merged into the alveolars. The glottal stop occurs predictably at the beginning of vowel-initial words, except those at the beginning of an utterance. The voiceless lateral approximant and voiceless lateral fricative are in free variation.

Vowels
Ngmẹev tshig has moderately large vowel inventory, with nine oral monophthongs and an additional three nasal monopthongs. The vowel inventory is characterized by the presence of both a rounded front vowel and unrounded back vowel. The vowel identified in the chart as /ɤ/ actually has a fairly wide range of realizations, the most common of which is [ɯ̽], but which also include [ɤ], [ɯ], and [ɨ]. Some dialects have a preference for one realization or another, while in others it appears to largely be up to the individual speaker, or vary by phonological environment. Additionally, all vowels may present as long, and there are a wide array of diphthongs, which are detailed below.

Phonotactics
The Ngmẹev tshig syllable is very simple, consisting of a vowel, which may be either a monophthong or a diphthong, and an optional onset, which may only consist of a single consonant. Ngmẹev tshig syllables may not have codas. Additionally, most syllables bear tone, though clitics do not possess a tone of their own, but rather echo that of their host word.

Writing System
Long vowels are written by doubling the vowel, e.g. /qʰoː˥/. Diphthongs are similarly written with the corresponding component vowels, e.g. /ŋ̊a͡e˩/.

Initial Consonant Mutations
Some grammatical environments trigger mutations in word-initial consonants. There are two primary kinds of mutations that can occur, the choice depending on the particular triggering environments. Below is a chart examining these mutations: