Last updated: 2020-03-06
Background
Language Family: Quechuan / Quechua II / B
- Inga is spoken in Colombia.
Phonology
Consonants
- /b/, /d/, /ɡ/, and /f/ appear in Spanish loanwords (Caudmont 1953, 363).
- Levinsohn (1976) (p. 23) and McDowell (2014) (p. 194) include the voiced stops in the phonemic inventory, most likely because the language has been majorly influenced by them (voiced stops make up 44.5% of the Crúbadán corpus).
|
|
Place of Articulation
|
|
Manner of Articulation
|
Labial
|
Dental
|
Postalveolar
|
Palatal
|
Velar
|
|
Stops
|
p
|
t̪
|
|
|
k
|
|
Affricates
|
|
|
tʃ
|
|
|
|
Fricatives
|
|
s̪
|
ʃ
|
|
x
|
|
Nasals
|
m
|
n̪
|
|
ɲ
|
|
|
Flaps
|
|
ɾ
|
|
|
|
|
Approximants
|
w
|
l̪
|
|
j ʎ
|
|
|
Note: The palatal approximant on the right is lateral.
|
Vowels
- /e/ and /o/ appear in Spanish loanwords (Caudmont 1953, 363).
- Based on the syllable structure of the language (see Syllable Structure below), adjacent vowels are interpreted as independent nuclei (one of which generally bears stress) (Levinsohn 1976, 21).
|
|
Front
|
Central
|
Back
|
|
High
|
i
|
|
u
|
|
Low
|
|
a
|
|
Alphabet
|
Grapheme
|
Phoneme
|
Comment
|
|
a
|
/a/
|
|
|
c
|
/k/
|
preceding back vowels
|
|
i
|
/i/
|
|
|
j
|
/x/
|
|
|
k
|
/k/
|
|
|
l
|
/l̪/
|
|
|
m
|
/m/
|
|
|
n
|
/n̪/
|
|
|
ñ
|
/ɲ/
|
|
|
p
|
/p/
|
|
|
r
|
/ɾ/
|
|
|
s
|
/s̪/
|
|
|
t
|
/t̪/
|
|
|
u
|
/u/
|
|
|
w
|
/w/
|
|
|
y
|
/j/
|
|
|
Digraph
|
|
|
|
ch
|
/tʃ/
|
|
|
ll
|
/ʎ/
|
|
|
qu
|
/k/
|
preceding front vowels
|
|
sh
|
/ʃ/
|
|
|
hu
|
/w/
|
|
Syllable Structure
- Syllables in Inga follow the order of (C)(C)V(C) (Levinsohn 1976, 21).
Lenition Rules
- Voiceless stops become voiced following nasal consonants (Maffla Bilbao 1976, 21).
- /p/ may spirantize preceding /x/ (ibid.).
- /s/ may become voiced preceding /n/ (Maffla Bilbao 1976, 22).
- In loanwords (Levinsohn 1976, 24):
- /b/ becomes [ɸ] preceding voiceless consonants.
- /b/ varies freely with [v] word-initially.
- /d/ varies freely with [ð] intervocalically.
- /ɡ/ becomes [ɣ] preceding /w/.
- /ɡ/ becomes [x] word-initially (preceding high vowels), word-finally, intervocalically, or preceding voiceless consonants.
Misc. Rules
- /n/ assimilates in place preceding velar consonants (Maffla Bilbao 1976, 22).
- /i/ and /u/ are realized as [j] and [w] postvocalically (Maffla Bilbao 1976, 23).
- Vowels may become nasalized preceding nasal consonants (Levinsohn 1976, 25).
References
Caudmont, Jean. 1953. “Los Fonemas Del Inga.” Revista Colombiana de Antropología 1 (1). Bogotá: 375–89.
Levinsohn, Stephen H. 1976. The Inga Language. De Gruyter Mouton.
Maffla Bilbao, Alonso. 1976. “Estructura Fonológica Y Estructura Del ’Vbl’ Del Inga (Lengua Del Putumayo).” Edited by Stephen H. Levinsohn. Serie Sintáctica, Serie sintáctica, 2 (24). Lomalinda: ILV: Bogotá: Ministerio de Gobierno: 1–50.
McDowell, John Holmes. 2014. Sayings of the Ancestors: The Spiritual Life of the Sibundoy Indians. University Press of Kentucky.