Pinyin (language)

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Pinyin

Spoken in

Northwest Region , Cameroon
speaker 24,600 (2001)
Linguistic
classification

Niger-Congo

Language codes
ISO 639-3

pny

The Pinyin is a bantoide language that a total of about 27,000 people in the region north-west of Cameroon is spoken.

Phonology

Consonants
phoneme Allophone Surroundings spelling
p p ⟨P⟩
pʰ Before / u / in an open syllable.
b After / ɴ̩ /. ⟨B⟩
β Between vowels within a sound.
t t ⟨T⟩
k k Beginning of words and sounds within words, and after / ɴ̩ /. ⟨K⟩
ʔ Only C at the end of words. ⟨'⟩
kʷ kʷ ⟨Kw⟩
l l In sounds. ⟨L⟩
ɾ In suffixes. ⟨R⟩
d After / ɴ̩ /. ⟨D⟩
ɣ ɣ ⟨Ɡh⟩
ɡ After / ɴ̩ /. ⟨Ɡ⟩
ɣʷ ɡʷ After / ɴ̩ /. ⟨Ɡw⟩
f f ⟨F⟩
s s / ts / to / ɴ̩ /. ⟨S⟩
ts ts ⟨Ts⟩
z z ⟨Z⟩
dz After / ɴ̩ /.
ʃ ʃ / tʃ / to / ɴ̩ /. ⟨Sh⟩
tʃ tʃ ⟨Ch⟩
ʒ ʒ ⟨Zh⟩
dʒ After / ɴ̩ /. ⟨J⟩
m m ⟨M⟩
n n ⟨N⟩
ɲ ɲ ⟨Ny⟩
ŋ ŋ ⟨Ŋ⟩
N̩ m̩ n̩ ŋ̍ Homorganic with following C. Bears clay. ⟨M⟩, ⟨n⟩
w w ⟨W⟩
ɥ ɥ ⟨Ẅ⟩
j j ⟨Y⟩

Sequences are:

py (mby), ly (ndy), ty, ky, ngy, my, kẅ, ngẅ (= / kʷj, ɡʷj / )
pw (mbw), lw (ndw), tw, tsw, chw, shw, sw, zw, zhw, nw, nyw, ŋw

All nouns and verbs begin with a consonant; initial vowels are necessarily prefixes. Only / a, ɨ / appear in prefixes or at the beginning of words, and only / ə / appear in suffixes. / ɨ, y / do not appear at the end of words.

Vowels.
Phonemes spelling
i i
y ʉ
ɛ e
a a
ɔ O
u u
ə ə
ɨ ɨ

All known long vowels can appear medially or at the end of words, none at the beginning, although long / ɛ, y / are not attested. Long vowels are written twice: aa, əə, ii, ‿ɨɨ, oo, uu . Diphthongs ie, iə, ʉə, ɨə, uə contain a single tone.

Tones are high, middle, low, rising or falling. They are written as in the IPA, except for depths that are not written: á ā a ǎ â. Falling tones are mostly attached to suffixes, and rising tones are rare and can be found in a few nouns like tǎ - 'father'.

swell