Last Updated: 2020-07-02
Background
Language Family: Uto-Aztecan / Southern Uto-Aztecan / Sonoran / Tarahumaran / Tarahumara
- Where dialects diverge, I will be preferring Western Tarahumara, which is only the second most widely spoken dialect but is the dialect with the most robust Crúbadán corpus.
- Western Tarahumara is spoken in the Chihuahua state in northern Mexico.
Phonology
Consonants
|
|
Place of Articulation
|
|
Manner of Articulation
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Labial
|
Alveolar
|
Postalveolar
|
Retroflex
|
Palatal
|
Velar
|
Glottal
|
|
Stops
|
p
|
t
|
|
|
|
k
|
ʔ
|
|
Affricates
|
|
|
tʃ
|
|
|
|
|
|
Fricatives
|
β
|
s
|
|
|
|
ɣ
|
h
|
|
Nasals
|
m
|
n
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Flaps
|
|
|
|
ɽ
|
|
|
|
|
Approximants
|
w
|
|
|
ɭ
|
j
|
|
|
Vowels
|
|
Front
|
Central
|
Back
|
|
High
|
i
|
|
u
|
|
Mid
|
e
|
|
o
|
|
Low
|
|
a
|
|
Alphabet
- Loanwords sometimes contain ⟨f q z⟩ (Thord-Gray 1955, 26–27).
|
Grapheme
|
Phoneme
|
|
a
|
/a/
|
|
b
|
/β/
|
|
e
|
/e/
|
|
g
|
/ɣ/
|
|
h
|
/h/
|
|
i
|
/i/
|
|
k
|
/k/
|
|
l
|
/ɭ/
|
|
m
|
/m/
|
|
n
|
/n/
|
|
o
|
/o/
|
|
p
|
/p/
|
|
r
|
/ɽ/
|
|
s
|
/s/
|
|
t
|
/t/
|
|
u
|
/u/
|
|
w
|
/w/
|
|
y
|
/j/
|
|
’
|
/ʔ/
|
|
Digraph
|
|
|
ch
|
/tʃ/
|
|
Orthographic Variation
|
(Thord-Gray 1955, 1157)
|
|
c
|
/k/
|
|
hu
|
/w/
|
|
j
|
/h/
|
|
qu
|
/k/
|
Lenition Rules
- Word-initial stops are sometimes voiced (Thord-Gray 1955, 26–27).
- /t/ sometimes approximantizes to [ɽ] (ibid.).
- Before high or front vowels, /tʃ/ spirantizes to [ʃ] (Valdez Jara 2013, 20).
Misc. Rules
- /β/ and /ɣ/ despirantize word-initially to [b] and [ɡ] respectively (Burgess 1984, 7).
- Phrase-initial /ɽ/ is often produced as [r] or, less commonly, [ɾ] (ibid.).
- In phrase-initial syllables, unstressed vowels lengthen unless they’re followed by a vowel or glottal consonant (Burgess 1984, 8).
- /i/ lowers in unstressed non-initial syllables (ibid.).
- When between stressed high vowels and glottal stops, word-initial /a/ reduces to [ə] (ibid.).
- Unstressed vowels often delete in fast speech (ibid.).
- Unstressed vowels in non-initial syllables delete when preceded by a nasal and followed by a stop (ibid.).
- Epenthesis of [j] typically occurs before word-initial vowels (Thord-Gray 1955, 26–27).
- /h/ is often realized as [x] (Valdez Jara 2013, 21).
References
Burgess, Donald. 1984. Western Tarahumara. Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Thord-Gray, I. 1955. Tarahumara-English, English-Tarahumara Dictionary. University of Miami Press.
Valdez Jara, Yolanda. 2013. “Predication in Rarómuri (Urique Tarahumara).” PhD thesis, University of Oregon.