| Language name: | KORYAK |
| UPSID number: | 2709 |
| Alternate name(s): | |
| Classification: | Chukchi-Kamchatkan |
| This language has | 21 segments |
| Its Frequency index is | 0.394256150 (average percentage of segments; 0.1: many very rare segments; 0.39: average; 0.7: many common segments) |
| The language has these sounds: | p "t k q ? tS v jF gF m "n N "r "l lj BA i "e a+ "o u |
| Comment: | Koryak is spoken by a few hundred people on the Kamchatka peninsula in the USSR. A vowel harmony process requires vowels in a word to belong to set 1 (i,u,e) or set 2 (e,o,a). Many transcriptions are given with a schwa vowel in Zhukova (1980) but their origin is not explained. Palatal laterals occur before most vowels but are described as "palatalized variants" of /l/. From the data available they appear contrastive. All consonants except /?/ can appear geminated. |
| Source(s): | Zhukova, A.N. 1980. Jazyk palanskikh Korjakov. Nauka, Leningrad. |