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Most Inuit varieties have fifteen consonants and three vowel qualities (with phonemic length distinctions for each). Although Inupiatun and Qawiaraq have retroflex consonants, retroflexes have otherwise disappeared in all the Canadian and Greenlandic dialects. ==Vowels== Almost all dialects of Inuktitut have only three basic vowels and make a phonemic distinction between short and long vowels. In ''Inuujingajut'' (the standard alphabet of Nunavut) long vowels are written as a double vowel. In western Alaska, Qawiaraq and to some degree the Malimiutun variant of Inupiatun retains an additional vowel which was present in proto-Inuit and is still present in Yupik, but which has become or sometimes in all other dialects. Thus, the common Inuktitut word for water – imiq – is emeq in Qawiaraq. Furthermore, many diphthongs in the Alaskan dialects have merged, suggesting the beginnings of a new more complex vowel scheme with more than three distinct vowels. This phenomenon is particularly noticeable in the Kobuk area, where the diphthongs and are now both pronounced . Other diphthongs are also affected. In contrast to the larger number of vowel contrasts in Alaskan dialects, in the dialect of northwest Greenland (particularly Upernavik), the phoneme has been replaced by in many contexts. Otherwise, the three-vowel scheme described above holds for all of the Inuktitut dialects. West Greenlandic vowels have a very wide range of allophones: * varies between , , , , and . The last allophone appears before and especially between uvulars. * varies between , , , and . The last allophone appears before and especially between uvulars. * varies between , , , and . The last allophone appears before and especially between uvulars. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Inuit phonology」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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