Pinyin language

For other uses, see Pinyin (disambiguation).
Pinyin
Region Northwest Region, Cameroon
Native speakers
25,000 (2001)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 pny
Glottolog piny1238[2]

Pinyin is a Grassfields language spoken by some 27,000 people in the Northwest Region of Cameroon.

Phonology

Consonants
Phoneme Allophones Environment Orthography
pp p
Before /u/ in an open syllable.
bAfter /ɴ̩/. b
βBetween vowels within a root.
t t t
kkBeginning of words and of roots within words, and after /ɴ̩/. k
ʔ Only C found at ends of words.
kw
l lIn roots. l
ɾIn suffixes. r
dAfter /ɴ̩/. d
ɣ ɣ ɡh
ɡAfter /ɴ̩/. ɡ
ɣʷɡʷAfter /ɴ̩/. ɡw
f f f
ss /ts/ after /ɴ̩/.s
tsts ts
z z z
dzAfter /ɴ̩/.
ʃʃ /tʃ/ after /ɴ̩/.sh
ch
ʒʒ zh
After /ɴ̩/. j
mm m
nn n
ɲɲ ny
ŋŋ ŋ
m̩ n̩ ŋ̍ Homorganic with following C. Carries tone. m, n
ww w
ɥɥ
jj 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 noun and verb roots begin with a consonant; initial vowels are necessarily prefixes. Only /a, ɨ/ occur in prefixes or at the beginning of words, and only /ə/ occurs in suffixes. /ɨ, y/ do not occur at the ends of words.

Vowels.
Phoneme Orthography
i i
y ʉ
ɛ e
a a
ɔ o
u u
ə ə
ɨ ɨ

All known long vowels may occur medially or at ends of words, none at the beginning, though long /ɛ, y/ are not attested. Long vowels are written double: aa, əə, ii, ‿ɨɨ, oo, uu. Diphthongs ie, iə, ʉə, ɨə, uə take a single tone.

Tones are high, mid, low, rising, falling. They are written as in IPA, apart from low, which is not written: á ā a ǎ â. Falling tone is largely confined to suffixes, and rising tone is rare, found only on a few nouns such as 'father'.

References

  1. Pinyin at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Pinyin". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
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