Besanese

Phonology

Consonants

The following are phonemic transcriptions of Besanese consonants.

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ŋ1
Plosive	plain	p b	t d		k g
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		kʰ
Fricative			s z2			h3
Affricate	plain		ts dz4
	aspirated		tsʰ
Liquid			ɾ~l5
Approximant		w		j

1. /ŋ/ appears only in the syllable coda.
2. /s, z/ are palatalized [ɕ, ʑ] before /i, j/
3. /h/ is palatalized [ç] before /i, j/; and is bi­la­bialized [ɸ] before /u, w/
4. /ts, dz, tsʰ/ may be pronounced [tɕ, dʑ, tɕʰ] by some speakers before /i, j/
5. /ɾ/ is an alveolar flap [ɾ] in the syllable onset; and is [l] in the syllable coda.

Vowels

Monophthongs

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ	u
Open-mid	ɛ		ɔ
Open	a

Diphthongs

In the Besanese language, because semivowels /j/ and /w/ may follow consonants in initial position in a word, which no other consonant can do, and perhaps due also to Enmun orthography (諺文

or 언문

), which transcribes them as vowels, they are sometimes considered to be elements of diphthongs and triphthongs rather than separate consonant phonemes.

j-	w-	-i
ja	wa	aɪ
jɛ	wɛ	eɪ
jɔ		ɔɪ
ju		uɪ~wi1

1. /uɪ/ is a falling diphthong [uɪ] after a consonant in an open syllable; and is a rising diphthong [wi] when it is a syllable of its own or in a closed syllable.

Triphthongs

j-	w-
jaɪ	waɪ
jeɪ	weɪ

Positional allophones

Besanese consonants have two principal positional allophones: initial and final. The initial form is found at the beginning of a syllable and the final form is found at the end of a syllable.

Phoneme	p	t	k	ɾ
Initial allophone	p	t	k	ɾ
Final allophone	p̚	t̚	k̚	l

All plosives [p, t, k] are unreleased [p̚, t̚, k̚] at the end of a syllable. Final [ɾ] is a liquid [l].

Phonotactics

Besanese syllable structure is maximally CgVC, where the first C is the initial consonant; g is a semivowel glide /j/ or /w/; V is a vowel; the second C is a coda. Any consonant but /ŋ/ may occur initially, whereas only /m, n, ŋ, p, t, k, l/ may occur finally.

Below is the table of all syllable finals (gVC) in Besanese.

Finals		Codas
		(null)	m	n	ŋ	p	t	k	l
Monophthong nuclei	a	a	am	an	aŋ	ap	at	ak	al
	ɛ	ɛ	ɛm	ɛn	ɛŋ	ɛp	ɛt	ɛk	ɛl
	ɔ	ɔ	ɔm	ɔn	ɔŋ	ɔp	ɔt	ɔk	ɔl
	u	u	um	un	uŋ	up	ut	uk	ul
	ɨ	ɨ	ɨm	ɨn	ɨŋ	ɨp	ɨt	ɨk	ɨl
	i	i	im	in	iŋ	ip	it	ik	il
Diphthong nuclei	ja	ja	jam	jan	jaŋ	jap	jat	jak	jal
	jɛ	jɛ	jɛm	jɛn	jɛŋ	jɛp	jɛt	jɛk	jɛl
	jɔ	jɔ	jɔm	jɔn	jɔŋ	jɔp	jɔt	jɔk	jɔl
	ju	ju	jum	jun	juŋ	jup	jut	juk	jul
	wa	wa	wam	wan	waŋ	wap	wat	wak	wal
	wɛ	wɛ	wɛm	wɛn	wɛŋ	wɛp	wɛt	wɛk	wɛl
	wi	wi1	wim	win	wiŋ	wip	wit	wik	wil
	aɪ	aɪ
	eɪ	eɪ
	ɔɪ	ɔɪ
	uɪ	uɪ2
Triphthong nuclei	jaɪ	jaɪ
	jeɪ	jeɪ
	waɪ	waɪ
	weɪ	weɪ

1. pronounced [wi] when it is a syllable of its own.
2. pronounced [uɪ] after an onset in an open syllable.

Vowel harmony

Traditionally, the Besanese language has had strong vowel harmony; that is, in pre-modern Besanese, not only did the inflectional and derivational affixes change in accordance to the main root vowel, but native words also adhered to vowel harmony. However, this rule is no longer observed strictly in modern Besanese. In modern Besanese, it is only applied in certain cases such as onomatopoeia and conjugation.

There are three classes of vowels in Besanese: positive, negative and neutral. The vowel classes loosely follow the front (positive) and back (negative) vowels; they also follow orthography. Exchanging positive vowels with negative vowels usually creates different nuances of meaning, with positive vowels sounding fast, hard, solid, hot, dry, focused or aggressive, and negative vowels sounding slow, soft, insubstantial, cold, wet, diffuse or tranquil.

	Neutral	Positive (Front)	Negative (Back)
Close	i ɨ		u
Open-mid		ɛ	ɔ
Open		a

For diphthongs, the positive vowels are: /ja/, /jɛ/, /wa/, /wɛ/, /aɪ/, /eɪ/; and the negative vowels are: /jɔ/, /ju/, /ɔɪ/, [uɪ]~[wɪ]. All triphthongs are positive: /jaɪ/, /jeɪ/, /waɪ/, /weɪ/.