Phonemic Sound Chart for Khowar

There are 39 consonants in the Khowar language.
A B C D E F G H
LABIAL p ph b f w m
APICAL t th d s z n l r
APICAL AFFRICATE tstsh dz
RETROFLEX T Th D Sh Zh L
RETROFLEX AFFRICATE C Ch J
PALATAL c ch j sh zh y
VELAR k kh g x gh
SUBVELAR q h
unasp.asp.voicedun-
voiced		voiced nasalsapproxi-
mates		vibrants/taps
unvoiced
stops / affricates fricatives

Above is a chart of the 39 consonants in the Khowar language. There are also five vowels in Khowar.

By reading this chart, it can be seen that the letter "p", the first letter on the chart, is a labial unaspirated unvoiced stop/affricate. Also, "gh" is a velar voiced fricative.

Note that ts, tsh, dz, etc. are independent phonemes in Khowar and are not merely combinations of two letters.

All nine capital letters in Khowar are retroflex. There are perhaps more retroflex phonemes in Khowar than in any other language of the world.

Here are the five vowels:

UNROUNDEDROUNDED
BACK
FRONTCENTRAL
i u HIGH
e o MID
a LOW

In many languages of the Middle East, the velar unvoiced fricative is written "kh", as in Khomeini. However, Khowar has an aspirated "k" sound, a phoneme which does not exist in those other languages. Therefore, in Khowar, "kh" is a velar aspirated unvoiced stop/affricate. The velar unvoiced fricative is written "x". Consequently, "Khomeni" would be written "Xomeni" in Khowar.

The above charts were originally developed by Knut Kristiansen and Rolf Theil Endresen of the University of Oslo in Norway. Minor modifications and the substitution of digraphs for the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet were made by David Munnings.

Ismail Sloan

Khomeni

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Contact address - please send e-mail to the following address: Sloan@ishipress.com