Phonemes
Consonants
| labial | alveolar | palatal | velar | glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |
| plosive | p b | t d | c | k g | ʔ |
| fricative | f v | s z | (ç) j | x | h |
| liquid | l r |
Ravna consists of 22 standard consonants.
- /t/, /d/, and /c/ are aspirated [tʰ], [dʰ], [cʰ] in Ravin dialect, but unaspirated elsewhere
- /x/ can be realized as [χ] in some dialects
- [ç] is realization of /h/ at coda, which can be realized as [ʂ] in some rare dialects or by non-native speakers
- /s/ and /z/ is realized as [ʂ] and [ʐ] in Ravin dialect, but not others
- Some dialects don't have phoneme /ʔ/
- In modern Ravna dialect that Ravin people speak, /l/ and /r/ are merged to [ɺ]
- /r/ can be either approximant [ɹ], tap [ɾ], or trill [r] in other dialects
Vowels
| front | central | back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| open | i | (ɨ) | u |
| mid | e ɛ | (ə) | o |
| closed | a | ɔ |
Ravna consists of 9 vowels.
- /ə/ occurs as unstressed /e/
- /ɨ/ occurs as unstressed /i/, which disappears when possible
- /a/ and /o/ have umlauts /ɛ/ and /u/ respectively.
- In verb conjugation ending, /e/ is realized as [ɛ] instead of [ə]. Similarly, /i/ is realized as [i] instead of [ɨ]
Umlaut
Umlauts are the vowels that are modified when forming inflected forms. These vowels are the stressed vowels of the main root, which is usually the last root.
Stress
Ravna is a stress-accent language with clear pitch accent patterns.
If the word has 3 syllables or less:
- The primary stress is on the first syllable.
- The low pitch is on the first syllable and the high pitch is on the last syllable. All other syllables have low pitches.
If the word has more than 3 syllables:
- The primary stress is on the first syllable.
- The secondary stress is on the third syllable.
- The high pitches are on the stresses, and low pitches are on other syllable.
These rules don't apply for prefixes—prefixes are never stressed. For prefixed words, stress rules apply starting from the main stem. The pitches are also reversed for these words
Another exception in compound:
- Compound with colliding vowels have the syllable with colliding vowels as primary stress, and the first syllable being secondary stress if there are more than two syllables.
- Compound with more than four syllables has the first syllable of the first root as primary stress and the first syllable of the second root as secondary stress.