Puguli language


Puguli or Phuie is the language of the Phuo people. It is spoken in Burkina Faso.

Phonology

Consonants

The glottal stop is not part of the orthography but appears frequently in 's survey data, typically word-initially and word-finally.
's orthography guide describes as 'alveo-palatal occlusives', using the phonetic transcriptions, but states as sounding like to French speakers. It is therefore unclear if the transcriptions are truly phonetic or if they are being used more loosely and are actually referring to the postalveolar affricates, which have sometimes been transcribed with in IPA illustrations and may also be described as 'alveo-palatal occlusives', though ambiguous. The author's original transcriptions are used in the chart above. Similarly, Malo explicitly states is not a fricative as it is in French, but it is unclear if it refers to or. 's survey data includes multiple examples of with occasional realization as as well as examples of, and no examples of affricates, suggesting that they may truly be palatal plosives.

Vowels

All vowels have nasalized forms and are written with the typical tilde above. In some dialects, the nasal vowels may be realized as or. The mid central vowel appears in a small subset of 's survey data as a realization of.
Labialization of consonants is written with the close back rounded vowels, rather than typical. The close front unrounded vowel may be realized as palatalization on the preceding consonants.

Tones

There are two phonemic tones, high and low, as well as a lexically contrastive but non-phonemic downstepped high tone. The low tone is written with the grave accent, the downstepped high tone is written with the acute accent, and the plain high tone is unmarked. 's survey data also shows phonetic possibility of mid and falling tones.

Orthography

Nasalization is indicated with a tilde: ã ẽ ɛ̃ ĩ ɩ̃ õ ɔ̃ ũ ʋ̃. The tilde is not indicated in the presence of a nasal consonant or when the first nasalized vowel is indicated.
The high tone, the most frequent, is not indicated. The low tone is indicated with the grave accent: à è ɛ̀ ì ɩ̀ ò ɔ̀ ù ʋ̀ ã̀ ẽ̀ ɛ̃̀ ĩ̀ ɩ̃̀ ɔ̃̀ õ̀ ɔ̃̀ ũ̀ ʋ̃̀ and the low high tone is indicated with an acute accent: á é ɛ́ í ɩ́ ó ɔ́ ú ʋ́ ã́ ẽ́ ɛ̃́ ĩ́ ɩ̃́ ṍ ɔ̃́ ṹ ʋ̃́.