Palula language

Palula vowel chart, from Liljegren & Haider (2009:383)

The following table sets out the vowels of Palula.[3][4]

Nasalization is found; however, it typically limited to vowels preceding sibilants and nasals and word finally.

The consonant inventory of Palula is shown in the chart below.[5]

Notes

• The phonemes /ʐ, ʐʱ, ʑʱ/ have a limited distribution throughout the language.[6]
• The aforementioned /ʐ/ phoneme appears to have an even more rare realization; ⟨ɖʐ⟩, which appears in the word ẓhaṇẓíir: [ɖʐʰaɳɖʐîːɾ], meaning chain. ⟨ɖʐ⟩ and ⟨ʐ⟩ are most likely allophones.[6]
• The phonemes /q/ and /f/, which are only used in loanwords from foreign languages, are often realized as the native consonants ⟨x⟩ and ⟨pʰ⟩ respectively.[7]
• The phonemic status of the voiceless aspirate and breathy voiced series are debatable. The breathy voiced series is generally considered lexical—a cluster of a consonant + /h/.[4][8]
• Neither voiceless aspiration nor breathy voicing co-occur with the voiceless fricatives /(f) s ʂ ɕ x h/, the distributionally limited /ɳ ɽ/, along with the newly borrowed phonemes /ɣ (q)/ in a syllable onset.[9]
• The phonemes /t/ and /d/ are realized as ⟨t̪⟩ and ⟨d̪⟩ respectively.[10]
• Similarly to the ⟨ʐ⟩~⟨ɖʐ⟩ connection, the phoneme /ʑ/ is often realized with an affricate pronunciation, similar to ⟨dʑ⟩.[6] This might be because /ʑ/ represents both ج and ژ.
• The phoneme /n/ has many different realizations depending on context. It is realized as a palatal nasal ⟨ɲ⟩ when /n/ precedes a palatal consonant. Similarly, /n/ is realized as a velar nasal ⟨ŋ⟩ when /n/ precedes a velar stop. When preceding a retroflex consonant, nasals assimilate and are thus realized as ⟨ɳ⟩. However, /ɳ/ appears to be a phoneme independent from /n/ as it distinguishes from it and can create minimal pairs such as "/kan/: shoulder" and "/kaɳ/: ear".
  In all other cases, /n/ is realized as its baseline pronunciation of ⟨n̪⟩, thus classifying /n/ as a dental nasal as opposed to an alveolar one.[6]
• The phoneme /r/ is realized as a ⟨ɾ⟩, often being a tap instead of a trill.[11]
• As with the case of Urdu, /ɽ/ cannot occur word-initially. However in Ashret, word-initially, /ɽ/ may be realized as a variation of /l/ (/lo/~/ɽo/: he, that).[11]
• The lateral approximant /l/ is velarized ⟨ɫ⟩ if preceded by a back vowel (a, aa, o, oo, u, uu), otherwise, it's realized as ⟨l⟩. This means that the word "khéeli" is pronounced as "[kʰêːli]", but the word "khúulu" is pronounced as "[kʰûːɫu]".[11]
• Depending on the speaker, the phoneme /w/ can be realized as either bilabially ⟨β̞⟩, or similar to a labiodental ⟨ʋ⟩, as is the case with Urdu.[11]

Like many Dardic languages, Palula shows either tone or, as in Palula, a pitch accent.[12] Words may have only one accented mora, which is associated with high pitch; the remaining mora have a default or low pitch.[13]

The used of diacritics seems to fluctuate depending on the writer, however, it is almost always used when needing to distinguish from another word with similar vowels, but can be dropped otherwise.