Picuris language

Genealogical relations

Phonology

• The consonants are only found in recent Spanish loanwords.
• G. Trager analyzed Picuris as also having aspirated stops, ejective stops, and labialized. These are considered by F. Trager to be sequences of,, and.
• Velar has strong frication.
• Stops are unaspirated while may be slightly aspirated.
• The affricate freely varies with a more forward articulation : for example, F. Trager recorded the word "witch" with an initial but the related word "witch chief" with initial.
• The sequence is only found in a single word.
• Alveolar has an assimilated velar variant when it precedes labio-velar.
• Nasal in a low-toned syllable is partially devoiced and denasalized before a glottal stop, as in "chokecherry" which is phonetically.
• Fricative freely varies between a lateral fricative and a central-lateral fricative sequence
• Lateral is palatalized before the high front vowel.
• Only the sonorants can occur in syllable coda position.

  Vowels

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