Bribri language

Consonants • /b/ has allophones , the last when next to nasal vowels. • /d/ has allophones . • /ɟ/ has allophones . • /ɾ/ has allophones . • /w, j/ have nasalized allophones . • /t͜ʃ/ has the allophones . • Long consonants are realized by some speakers as pre-aspirated rather than geminate. They may not be separated by vowels, unlike consonant sequences. • /t͜kʲ/ has allophones at the beginning of a word, at the end, and in the middle. It is distinct from the sequence and appears to be merging into ; All voiced consonants have nasal allophones in the environment of (before or after) nasal vowels. In the case of /d/, flapped allophones occur initially before a consonant, and medially between vowels. Occlusive only occur initially before a vowel. Long and short consonants contrast medially and word-finally. Vowels I, u and a are pronounced in the same manner as they would be in Spanish. E and o are more open than in Spanish. The sound of ë is between i and e, and ö is between u and o. The nasal vowels are pronounced similarly to the corresponding orals, with the addition of some air exiting through the nose. In Coroma dialect, ã has merged into /ɔ̃/, and an initial unaccented vowel /a/ or /ã/ tends to be dropped. Pitch accent In stressed or 'accented' syllables, Bribri distinguishes high (allophonically rising) and falling tones; unstressed syllables do not distinguish tone and tend to have low pitch. There are past reports that high and rising tone are contrastive in Amubre dialect, for a three-way distinction in accented syllables; however, this was not confirmed with more recent investigations. Syllable structure The final syllable of a root is accented (tonic) and is maximally CVC. All syllables but the last are unaccented and maximally CV̆; the vowel is short and may only be /a i u/ or their nasal counterparts. The vowels in such syllables may be elided, producing phonetic consonant sequences. == Alphabet ==