Besanese

Consonants

 * 1) /ŋ/ appears only in the syllable coda.
 * /s, z/ are palatalized [ɕ, ʑ] before /i, j/
 * 1) /h/ is palatalized [ç] before /i, j/; and is bi­la­bialized [ɸ] before /u, w/
 * 2) /ts, dz/ may be pronounced [tɕ, dʑ] by some speakers before /i, j/
 * 3) /ɾ/ is an alveolar flap [ɾ] in the syllable onset; and is [l] in the syllable coda.

Vowels
Monophthongs

Diphthongs


 * 1) /uɪ/ is a falling diphthong [uɪ] after a consonant in a syllable; and is a rising diphthong [wi] at the start of a syllable.

Triphthongs

Positional allophones
Besanese consonants have two principal positional allophones: initial and final. The initial form is found at the beginning of a syllable and the final form is found at the end of a syllable. All plosives [p, t, k] are unreleased [p̚, t̚, k̚] at the end of a syllable. Final [ɾ] is a liquid [l].

Vowel harmony
Traditionally, the Besanese language has had strong vowel harmony; that is, in pre-modern Besanese, not only did the inflectional and derivational affixes change in accordance to the main root vowel, but native words also adhered to vowel harmony. However, this rule is no longer observed strictly in modern Besanese. In modern Besanese, it is only applied in certain cases such as onomatopoeia and conjugation.

There are three classes of vowels in Besanese: positive, negative and neutral. The vowel classes loosely follow the front (positive) and back (negative) vowels; they also follow orthography. Exchanging positive vowels with negative vowels usually creates different nuances of meaning, with positive vowels sounding fast, hard, solid, hot, dry, focused or aggressive, and negative vowels sounding to slow, soft, insubstantial, cold, wet, diffuse or tranquil.

For diphthongs, the positive vowels are: /ja/, /jɛ/, /wa/, /wɛ/, /aɪ/, /eɪ/; and the negative vowels are: /jɔ/, /ju/, /ɔɪ/, [uɪ]~[wɪ]. All triphthongs are positive: /jaɪ/, /jeɪ/, /waɪ/, /weɪ/.