Inuit phonology

Most Inuit varieties have fifteen consonants and three vowel qualities (with phonemic length distinctions for each).

West Greenlandic vowels have a very wide range of allophones: The Nunavut dialects of Inuktitut have fifteen distinct consonants, though some have more.

[3] In Inuktitut, intonation is important in distinguishing some words – particularly interrogatives – but it is not generally marked in writing.

There are some minimal pairs in Inuktitut where only pitch distinguishes between two different words, but they are rare enough that context usually disambiguates them in writing.

So, a rising tone is sometimes indicated indirectly by writing a double vowel: An Inuktitut syllable contains no more than one segment in the onset or coda.

Word-medially, two-segment sequences may occur, but these show restrictions in their distribution, based on voicing and nasality.

E.g. North Baffin takagakku ('because I see her') vs. Aivilingmiutut takugapku In South Baffin, Nunavik, Greenland and Labrador, double consonants starting with a velar consonant are also geminated: In addition, some dialects of Inuktitut pronounce [bl] ([vl] in Inupiatun) in place of the geminated lateral approximant /ll/.

This feature is generally characteristic of western and central dialects as opposed to eastern ones.

Many phonemes in the Qawiaraq dialect have undergone a process of consonant weakening, although to what degree varies somewhat between villages.

For example, the word meat – niqi in most dialects – is rendered as nigi in Qawiaraq – the stop /q/ has become the fricative /ɣ/.

Consonant weakening is most noticeable in the area adjacent to the Bering Strait in the westernmost part of Alaska.

The historical fourth vowel of Inuktitut – the schwa /ə/ – affected the pronunciation of alveolar consonants following it.

For example, the second person singular pronoun ilvit – you – in more easterly dialects of Inuktitut becomes ilvich in Inupiatun.

In contrast, iqit (fist, iqitii in Canadian Inuktitut), which was pronounced [əqət] in proto-Inuktitut, retains its stop /t/.

Many of the western and central dialects of Nunavut – including Inuinnaqtun, Kivallirmiutut and Natsilingmiutut – realize the phoneme /s/ as [h].

This additional manner of articulation is largely distinctive to Inupiatun – it is absent from the more easterly dialects, except for the /ɟ/ of Natsilingmiutut.