2 • Phonemic Inventory: The Sounds of the Language
abstract
Both Hokkaidō Ainu and Sakhalin Ainu (that will be abbreviated as HA and SA respectively from now on) have five vowels, represented in the latin script by a, e, i, o, u, and twelve consonants, represented in the latin script by p, t, k, c, s, r, m, n, w, y, h, ‘. The apostrophe is used to signal the glottal stop /ʔ/, a plosive glottal voiceless consonant that consists in an obstruction of the airflow in the glottis and produces a sort of pause like when in English we exclaim uh-oh.