Guayabero language
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Guayabero is a Guahiban language that is spoken by a thousand people in Colombia. Many of its speakers are monoglots, with few fluent Spanish speakers in the population.
Phonology
The Guayabero syllable structure can be represented as CV(V)(C)(C). Each syllable has an obligatory single consonant onset and a nucleus of one or two vowels. An optional coda of at most two consonants can occur in both word-medial and final positions.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ | |
| voiced | b | d | ||||
| Affricate | t͡ʃ | |||||
| Fricative | ɸ | s | x | h | ||
| Nasal | m | n | ||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | |||
| Flap | ɾ |
- /w/ is heard as labiodental [ʋ] when preceding front vowel sounds.
- /d/ can be heard as fricatives in syllable-final positions. As a voiced dental [ð] when after front vowels, and as a voiceless [θ] when after back vowels in syllable-final positions.
- /n/ is heard as [ɲ] when following front vowels and as [ŋ] when preceding velar /k/.
- /b/ is heard as preglottal [ˀb] in accented syllable-initial positions and as [β] in intervocalic positions.
- /s/ is also heard as postalveolar [ʃ] in syllable-final position in free variation.
- /x/ is heard as uvular [χ] in accented syllables.
- /j/ is heard as a stop [ɟ] in accented syllable-initial positions.
- Vowels /i, e, ɨ, a, o, u/ are heard in unstressed position as [ɪ, ɛ, ɨ̞, ʌ, ɔ, ʊ].