Chapter 7 The sound inventory
IPA reference
The tables below summarize every Phi sound in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, for quick lookup while you work through this part. The authoritative standard lives in documents/reference/phonology_rules.md; if this page and that document ever disagree, that document wins.
Vowels
| Vowel | IPA |
|---|---|
| a | /ä/ |
| e | /e̞/ |
| i | /i/ |
| o | /o̞/ |
| u | /u/ |
Consonants
| Consonant | IPA | Type |
|---|---|---|
| m | /m/ | nasal |
| n | /n̪/ | nasal (dental) |
| p | /p/ | stop |
| t | /t̪/ | stop (dental) |
| k | /k/ | stop |
| l | /l/ | liquid |
| r | /r/ or /ɾ/ | liquid |
| s | /s/ | fricative |
| h | /h/ | fricative |
| w | /w/ | glide |
Fricative digraphs
| Digraph | IPA |
|---|---|
| ph | /ɸ/ |
| th | /θ/ |
| sh | /ʃ/ |
| wh | /ʍ/ |
Syllable boundaries and stress
Vowel pairs always show a syllable break with a dot: au is /ä.u/, oi is /o̞.i/, never a single glided sound. Stress falls on the penultimate syllable of every word: mia is /ˈmi.ä/, haolu is /hä.ˈo̞.lu/, and mioru is /mi.ˈo̞.ru/. A single-syllable word takes its stress on that one syllable, as in mu /ˈmu/.
Reference and accent
These transcriptions define careful reference speech, not the only legitimate accent. Conversational Phi may use [f] for /ɸ/, [w̥] or [hw] for /ʍ/, [r], [ɾ], or [ɹ] for r, alveolar [t n] for dental /t̪ n̪/, light aspiration on stops, and [t̪θ] for /θ/. A variant is accepted when it preserves Phi's phonemic contrasts and syllable count. In particular, wh remains distinct from w, th from t, s, and ph, and adjacent vowels remain separate syllables.