Phonology

Nong Zhuang phonology varies according to the regional sub-dialect. The phonemic inventory presented here is that of Zhetu District of Guangnan County. For more details and phonemic inventories of other areas, see SIL Electronic Working Paper 2011-005.

Consonants

		Bilabial	Palatalized Bilabial	Labiodental	Interdental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Labio-Velar	Glottal
Occlusive	voiceless unaspirated	p	pʲ			t	c	k	kʷ	ʔ
	voiceless unaspirated	pʰ	pʰʲ			tʰ	cʰ	kʰ	kʰʷ
	voiced pre-glottalized	ʔb				ʔd		g
Fricatives	voiceless			f	θ- (s-)					h
	voiced				ð- (ɾ-)
Approximate	voiced			ʋ (v-)			j		w
Nasal	voiceless	m		n			ɲ	ŋ
Lateral spirant	voiced			l

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
	unrounded		unrounded	rounded
close	i		ɯ	u
close-mid	e		ɤ	oː
mid		ə
open-mid	ɛ			ɔ
open long	aː
open short	a

Diphthongs & triphthongs:
/iu, io, eo, aːi, ai, aːu, au, aɯ ei, oːi, ɔi, uːi, ieu, iaːu, iau/

Tones

Orthography	Toneme Number (China system)	Proto-Tai Category	Pitch Values (Chao system)
(unmarked)	1	A1	²⁴
-z	2	A2	³³
-j	3	C1	²²
-x	4	C2	⁵³
-q	5	B1	¹¹/¹²
-h	6	B2	³¹
–p, –t, or –k	7 (or 7短, short)	D1S	⁵⁵
–b, –d, or –g	8 (or 8 短, short)	D2S	³³
–p, –t, or –k	9 (or 7长, long)	D2L	¹¹
–b, –d, or –g	10 (or 8 长, long)	D2L	³¹