Guayabero language

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. 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.

/w/ is heard as labiodental when preceding front vowel sounds.
/d/ can be heard as fricatives in syllable-final positions. As a voiced dental when after front vowels, and as a voiceless when after back vowels in syllable-final positions.
/n/ is heard as when following front vowels and as when preceding velar /k/.
/b/ is heard as preglottal in accented syllable-initial positions and as in intervocalic positions.
/s/ is also heard as postalveolar in syllable-final position in free variation.
/x/ is heard as uvular in accented syllables.
/j/ is heard as a stop in accented syllable-initial positions.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Mid	e		o
Low	æ	a

Vowels /i, e, ɨ, a, o, u/ are heard in unstressed position as .