Inuit phonology

This article discusses the phonology of the Inuit languages. Unless otherwise noted, statements refer to Inuktitut dialects of Canada.
Most Inuit varieties have fifteen consonants and three vowel qualities. Although Inupiatun and Qawiaraq have retroflex consonants, retroflexes have otherwise disappeared in all the Canadian and Greenlandic dialects.

Vowels

Almost all dialects of Inuktitut have three vowel qualities and make a phonemic distinction between short and long vowels. In Inuujingajut long vowels are written as a double vowel.

IPA	Inuujingajut
	a
	aa
	i
	ii
	u
	uu

In western Alaska, Qawiaraq and to some degree the Malimiutun variant of Inupiatun retains an additional vowel which was present in proto-Inuit and is still present in Yupik, but which has become or sometimes in all other dialects. Thus, the common Inuktitut word for water – imiq – is emeq in Qawiaraq.
Furthermore, many diphthongs in the Alaskan dialects have merged, suggesting the beginnings of a new more complex vowel scheme with more than three distinct vowels. This phenomenon is particularly noticeable in the Kobuk area, where the diphthongs and are now both pronounced. Other diphthongs are also affected.
In contrast to the larger number of vowel contrasts in Alaskan dialects, in the dialect of northwest Greenland, the phoneme has been replaced by in many contexts.
Otherwise, the three-vowel scheme described above holds for all of the Inuktitut dialects.
West Greenlandic vowels have a very wide range of allophones:

varies between,,,, and. The last allophone appears before and especially between uvulars.
varies between,,, and. The last allophone appears before and especially between uvulars.
varies between,,, and. The last allophone appears before and especially between uvulars.
Consonants

The Nunavut dialects of Inuktitut have fifteen distinct consonants, though some have more.

Stress

Primary stress is said to fall on the last syllable of each word.

Intonation

In Inuktitut, intonation is important in distinguishing some words – particularly interrogatives – but it is not generally marked in writing. There are some minimal pairs in Inuktitut where only pitch distinguishes between two different words, but they are rare enough that context usually disambiguates them in writing. One common case, however, is suva. A high pitch on the first syllable followed by a falling pitch on the second syllable means "What did you say?" A middle pitch on the first syllable followed by a rising pitch on the second means "What did he do?"
In general, Inuktitut uses intonation to mark questions in much the way English does. When an interrogative pronoun is used, pitch falls at the end of a question. When there is no interrogative pronoun, pitch rises on the last syllable.
Inuktitut speakers tend to lengthen vowels with a rising intonation. So, a rising tone is sometimes indicated indirectly by writing a double vowel:

Phonotactics and sandhi

An Inuktitut syllable contains no more than one segment in the onset or coda. Thus, consonant clusters like or that would arise from morphemes being joined together show assimilation or deletion. Word-finally, only voiceless stops occur unless consonant sandhi has occurred. Although two-consonant sequences occur when morphemes are joined together word-medially, three-segment clusters are consistently simplified.
Word-medially, two-segment sequences may occur, but these show restrictions in their distribution, based on voicing and nasality. The consonants that occur in these sequences belong to three groups:
Consonants in word-medial sequences always belong to the same group so that, e.g.,, and occur, whereas,, and are not found. Where the morphology of Inuktitut places consonants from different groups together, they are either replaced by a geminated consonant – in effect, total assimilation – or as a single consonant that takes its manner of articulation from one segment, and its place of articulation from the other. The process of eliminating three-segment clusters is similar with one of them disappearing. As a general rule, assimilation in Inuktitut is regressive – the first consonant takes its manner of articulation from the second consonant. But this varies amongst different dialects; the West Greenland dialect in particular tends to use progressive assimilation – the second consonant takes the manner of articulation from the first.
This limitation on consonant clusters is not quite universal across Inuit areas. One of the distinguishing features of western Alaskan dialects like Qawiaraq and Malimiutun is that nasal consonants can appear after consonants with other manners of articulation. Some examples include the Malimiut word qipmiq and the Qawiaraq word iqniq.
Otherwise, different dialects have more phonotactic restrictions. In all forms of Inuktitut, is impossible. In Inupiatun, Siglitun, and Inuinnaqtun, all other consonant pairs are possible. Moving further east, the general rule is that more and more double consonants become geminated consonants. Determining which double consonants are assimilated depends on the place of articulation of the first consonant in the pair:
In the Aivilik dialect, North and South Baffin, and all dialects spoken further south and east, all double consonants starting with an alveolar consonant are geminated:

Dialect	word
Sew Inupiatunivlin	ivlin
Inupiatun	ilvich
Siglitun	ilvit
Inuinnaqtun	ilvit
Natsilingmiutut	ilvit
Kivallirmiutut	igvit
Aivilingmiutut	igvit
North Baffin	ivvit
South Baffin/Nunavik	ivvit
Labrador	iffit
Kalaallihut Inuktun	iglit
Kalaallisut	illit
East Kalaattisit	ittit

In the North and South Baffin dialects, as well as the dialects to the south and east of Baffin Island, double consonants starting with a labial consonant are also geminated. E.g. North Baffin takagakku vs. Aivilingmiutut takugapku
In South Baffin, Nunavik, Greenland and Labrador, double consonants starting with a velar consonant are also geminated:

English	Inupiatun	Inuinnaqtun	Aivilingmiutut	North Baffin	South Baffin	Nunatsiavummiutut	Kalaallisut	East Kalaattisit
house	iglu	iglu	iglu	iglu	illu	illuK^[\|1]	illu	ittiq

In addition, some dialects of Inuktitut pronounce in place of the geminated lateral approximant. The phonological status of this distinction is uncertain – some dialects have both and. This feature is generally characteristic of western and central dialects as opposed to eastern ones.

English	Inupiatun	Inuinnaqtun	Aivilingmiutut	North Baffin	South Baffin	Nunatsiavummiutut	Kalaallisut	East Kalaattisit
thumb	kuvlu	kublu	kublu	kullu	kullu	[\|kulluK]¹	kulloq¹	tikkit

Note 1 [|qitilliK], kulluK, kulloq: In the Nunatsiavummiutut alphabet, a capital K indicates the same uvular stop as q in the Inupiatun, Inuinnaqtun, Kalaallisut and Nunavut alphabets. Furthermore, o in the Kalaallisut alphabet represents the same phoneme as u in the alphabets used for other varieties of Inuktitut. Contrasts between alphabets are described below.
Double consonants where the second consonant is undergo more complex changes across dialects. In some cases assimilation is progressive, in others regressive, and in still others double consonants are neutralised into a single form.

Seward Inupiaq	North Inupiaq	Siglitun	Western dialects	Inuinnaqtun	Ahiarmiut	Natsilik/Kivalliq	North Baffin	South Baffin & Nunavik	Kalaallisut	Kalaallihut	Kalaattisit
ks/gz	ks/ksr	ks	ks	kh	kk	kh	ks	ts	ss	gh	ts
vs/pz	ps	ps	ps	ff	pp	ph	ss	ts	ss	hh	ts
qs/qz	qs/qsr	qs	qs	qh	qq	qh	qs	ts	rs	rh	rs/rt
ss/zz	tch	tch	ts	tt	tt	ts	tt	ts	ts	ts	ts

Other systematic dialectical variations

Consonant weakening in Qawiaraq

Many phonemes in the Qawiaraq dialect have undergone a process of consonant weakening, although to what degree varies somewhat between villages. This process is motivated in part by prosody and parallels the consonant weakening processes at work in Yupik. As a result, many stops have become fricatives and many fricatives have become glides or completely disappeared. For example, the word meat – niqi in most dialects – is rendered as nigi in Qawiaraq – the stop has become the fricative.
Consonant weakening is most noticeable in the area adjacent to the Bering Strait in the westernmost part of Alaska.