Choni language
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Choni (Jonê) and Thewo are dialects of a Tibetic language spoken in western China in the vicinity of Jonê County.
Phonology
Consonants
Choni has four contrastive aspirated fricatives: /sʰ/ /ɕʰ/, /ʂʰ/, /xʰ/.
- /r/ is phonetically a fricativized alveolar trill [r̝], and may be heard as [ʐ] as an allophone.
- A syllable-initial /k/ can be heard as a uvular fricative [χ] before voiceless consonants and as a voiced [ʁ] before voiced consonants. A syllable-final /k/ can be heard as a uvular stop [q] after /æ/ or /ɔ/ vowel sounds.
- [ʁ] can also be heard as an allophone of /ɣ/ between /æ/ or /ɔ/ and another vowel.
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| Close | i | iː | ʉ | ʉː | u | uː |
| ɪ | ɪː | |||||
| Close-mid | e | eː | o | oː | ||
| Mid | ə | |||||
| Open-mid | ɛ | ɔ | ||||
| Open | æ | ɑ | ɑː |
- [ũː] rarely exists as a phoneme, and is only attested in a few words with a palatal or alveolo-palatal initial.
Tone
Choni has two contrasting tones, which are realized differently on long and short vowels. They are word tones, with predictable realizations on the second syllable of a morpheme.