Help:IPA/Greenlandic
The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents Greenlandic pronunciations in Wikipedia articles. For a guide to adding IPA characters to Wikipedia articles, see {{IPA-kl}} and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation § Entering IPA characters.
See Greenlandic phonology and Inuit phonology for a more thorough look at the sounds of Greenlandic and other Inuit languages.
| IPA | Examples | nearest English equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| çː | agguut | hue |
| fː | affaq | for |
| ɣ | igaaq | Spanish fuego |
| j | qajaq | yes |
| k | kukik | ski |
| l | aleqa | land |
| ɬː | illu | By getting the tongue up to the roof and giving a quick breath out; Welsh llwyd. |
| m | mannik | man |
| n | nuna | now |
| ŋ | angut | sing |
| ɴ | arnaq [b] | like ng but further down the throat |
| p | putu | spoil |
| q | qajaq | like k but further down the throat |
| ʁ | erinaq | French rester |
| s | sisamat | soon |
| t | tallimat | stop |
| ts | timi, atsa [c] | cats |
| v | savik | love |
| χː | tarraq | like Scottish loch but further down the throat |
| IPA | Examples | nearest English equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| a | aja | cat |
| aː | aak | mad |
| ɑ | qajaq[d] | like father, but shorter |
| ɑː | aaq[d] | father |
| ɜ | erneq[d] | bet or but |
| ɜː | meeraq[d] | Australian bear or Australian burn |
| i | isi | meat |
| iː | kiinaq | knee |
| ɔ | oqaq[d] | off |
| ɔː | sooq[d] | more |
| u | pukusuk | roof |
| ʉ | nuna[e] | Australian goose |
| uː | kuuk | coo |
| y | ipi[f] | roughly like meat, but with rounded lips |
| Diphthongs | ||
| ai | iliorarpai | irate |
Notes
- ^ Between vowels, Greenlandic consonants can occur either short or long. In IPA, long consonants may be written doubled or be followed by the length sign: /nn/ or /nː/. Long fricatives are voiceless.
- ^ The uvular nasal [ɴ] is not found in all dialects and there is dialectal variability regarding its status as a phoneme
- ^ Short [t͡s] is in complementary distribution with short [t], with the former appearing before /i/ and the latter elsewhere; both are written ⟨t⟩ and could be analysed as belonging to the same phoneme /t/. Before /i/, long [tt͡s] occurs while long [tt] doesn't, so long [tt͡s] before /i/ could be analysed as long /tt/. However, before /a/ and /u/, both long [tt͡s] and long [tt] occur (except in some dialects, including that of Greenland's third largest town). Long [tt͡s] is always written ⟨ts⟩
- ^ a b c d e f The vowels /a, i, u/ are lowered to [ɑ, ɛ~ɜ, ɔ], respectively, before uvular consonants /q, ʁ/.
- ^ /u/ is fronted to [ʉ] between two coronal consonants.
- ^ /i/ is rounded to [y] before labial consonants.