| Language name: | ITELMEN |
| UPSID number: | 2710 |
| Alternate name(s): | KAMCHADAL |
| Classification: | Chukchi-Kamchatkan |
| This language has | 32 segments |
| Its Frequency index is | 0.292890798 (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 ? p' "t' k' q' tS "ts' P x X B jF gF "s "z hlFJ lFJ m "n "nJ N "r l i "e a+ "o u |
| Comment: | Itelmen is spoken by some older speakers on the west coast of the Kamchatka peninsula, USSR. Volodin (1976) describes a limited vowel harmony system based on height, /i,u/ -> /e,o/ and /e/ -> /a/ when a low(er) vowel follows. Glottal stop is largely found at morpheme boundaries. Several phonetic descriptions are vague; /a/ may be central or front, the lateral fricatives might not be actually fricative, the alveolar ejective affricate might be be palato-alveolar (it is described as contrasting with /tS/ by being non-palatalized). |
| Source(s): | Volodin, A.P. 1976. Itel'menskij Jazyk. Nauka, Leningrad. |