EURPhon: Sumi (Sema)

Sumi (Sema)

Phylum: Sino-Tibetan

Genus: Kuki-Chin

Lat/lon: 26.0, 94.52377

ISO code: nsm

Consonants

Basic short series

	bilabial	labio-dental	alveolar	postalveolar	velar	uvular	glottal
stop	p, pʰ, b		t, tʰ, d		k, kʰ, g	q, qʰ
fricative		f, v		ʃ, ʒ	x, ɣ		h
affricate				tʃ, tʃʰ
nasal	mʰ, m		nʰ, n		ŋ
approximant			ɹ
lateral approximant			lʰ, l

Vowels

Basic short series

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

Tones

11, 33, 55

Licit initial clusters

Ø

Licit syllabic templates

(C)V(C)

Source: Teo, Amos. 2012. Sumi (Sema). Journal of the International Phonetic Association 42.365–373. doi:10.1017/S0025100312000254.

Comments: The canonical syllable shape is CV. VC shape can appear due to sesquisyllabic effects (amla [am11 la11] ‘chest’—a relational prefix + the sesquisyllabic root ). Lexically onsetless syllables sometimes attach a glottal stop. Postalveolar affricates and fricatives turn into alveolars before [ɨ a]. /v/ turns to [w] before [o u]. /ɹ/ is found only in borrowed words, but displays native tonal contrasts. /ʒ/ is in free variation with [dʒ]. Velars palatalise to palatal obstruents before [i e].

Contributed by: Dmitry Nikolaev (dnikolaev@fastmail.com)