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Svan (Upper Bal)

Phylum: Kartvelian

Genus: Svan

Lat/lon: 43.0, 42.7

ISO code: sva

Consonants

Basic short series

bilabiallabio-velardentalalveolarpostalveolarpalatalvelaruvularglottal
stoppʰ, pʼ, bt̪ʼ, t̪ʰ, d̪kʰ, kʼ, gqʰ, qʼ
trillr
fricatives, zʒ, ʃʁ, χh
affricatetsʼ, ts, dztʃʼ, tʃ, dʒ
nasalm
approximantwj
lateral approximantl

Vowels

Basic short series

frontcentralback
closey, iɯ, u
open-midɛ, œɔ
near-openæ
open

Long series

frontcentralback
closeyː, iː
open-midɛː, œːɔː
near-openæː
openäː

Licit initial clusters

ʃd̪, Cg, Ckʰ, Ckʼ, Cw

Source: Tuite, Kevin. 1998. A short descriptive grammar of the Svan language. Université de Montréal.

Comments: Some other sources also record /e:/, /ɢ/, /ʔ/, /f/ and /v/ as separate phonemes. /ɯ/ might be realized as [ɤ], [ə] or [ɨ]. Although there are restirctions of initial clusters, heavy final clusters are tolerated (χɔsgwdʒ 'I ordered sb', äχɛqʰwsg 'you stole up on sb').

Contributed by: André Nikulin (andre.n.guzman@gmail.com)