Phonology
Most Rukai dialects have four vowels and retroflex and interdental consonants.
Budai Rukai has four vowels, /i ə a u/. /ə/ is not a schwa but a full vowel. Words ending phonemically in a consonant add an echo vowel, one of /i ə u/, which unlike morphophonemic vowels is often lost in derivation. /ə/ is used when the last vowel of the stem is /a/.
Budai consonants are:
| labial | inter- dental |
alveolar | retroflex | palatal | velar | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||
| plosive | p b | t d | ɖ | k ɡ | ||
| affricate | ts | |||||
| fricative | v | θ ð | s | |||
| trill | r | |||||
| approximant | w | l | ɭ | j |
Due to influence from Paiwan and Chinese, younger speakers sometimes pronounce /ð/ as, and in Tanan Rukai, younger speakers may merge /s/ and /θ/ as .
In Mantauran Rukai, the voiced plosives have fricated: *b to /v/, *d and *ɖ to /ð/, and *g to /h/. The resulting inventory is (Zeitoun 2007):
- 15 consonants, written p, t, k, ’, v, s, h, dh, c, m, n, ng, l, r, lr
- 4 vowels, written a, i, e, o
Read more about this topic: Rukai Language