EURPhon: Even (Ola)

Phylum: Tungusic

Genus: Northern Tungusic

Lat/lon: 59.569799, 151.26588

ISO code: eve

Consonants

Basic short series

	bilabial	alveolar	postalveolar	palatal	velar	pharyngeal
stop	p, b	t, d			k, g
trill		r
fricative	β̞	s̠				ħ
affricate			tʃ, dʒ
nasal	m	n		ɲ	ŋ
approximant				j
lateral approximant		l

Vowels

Basic short series

	front	central	back
close	i		u
close-mid	e		o
open		a

Long series

	front	central	back
close	iː		uː
close-mid	eː		oː
open		aː

Short pharyngealised series

	front	back
close	iˤ	uˤ
close-mid		oˤ

Long pharyngealised series

	front	back
close	iˤː	uˤː
close-mid		oˤː

Diphthongs

/ie/, /iˤæ/

Licit syllabic templates

(C)V(C)

Source: Новикова, Клавдия Александровна. 1960. Очерки диалектов эвенского языка. Часть 1: ольский говор. Москва; Ленинград: Издательство АН СССР; Aralova, Natalia. 2015. Vowel harmony in two Even dialects: Production and perception. Ph.D. thesis. University of Amsterdam.

Comments: The system is presented according to the interpretation in Aralova 2015. /ħ/ and /s̠/ are in complementary distribution (/ħ/ only word initially). /oː/ ‘is slightly diphthongoid and starts with a short [u]’ (p. 30). Vowel harmony is root based and governs the distribution of consonant allophones: ‘According to Novikova (1960), the vowel inventory is divided into two groups of vowels opposed by pharyngealization, namely the non-pharyngealized set /e eː i iː o oː u uː ie/ vs. the pharyngealized set /a aː ị ịː ọ ọː ụ ụː ịa/. <...> Novikova (1960: 74) notes a common tendency for all consonants to be retracted in the context of set 2 vowels. According to her, within a word containing set 2 vowels, labials become nasalized, dental stops get secondary dorsal articulation, and the velar voiceless stop becomes uvular. <...> The lateral approximant has a palatalized variant within the context of set 1 vowels and a velarized variant within the context of set 2 vowels.’ (p. 38–39)