Choni language
Choni (Jonê) and Thewo are dialects of a Tibetic language spoken in western China in the vicinity of Jonê County.
Choni has four contrastive aspirated fricatives: /sʰ/ /ɕʰ/, /ʂʰ/, /xʰ/.
Phonology
- /r/ is phonetically a fricativized alveolar trill [r̝], and may be heard as [ʐ] as an allophone.
- A syllable-initial /k/ can be heard as a uvular fricative [χ] before voiceless consonants and as a voiced [ʁ] before voiced consonants. A syllable-final /k/ can be heard as a uvular stop [q] after /æ/ or /ɔ/ vowel sounds.
- [ʁ] can also be heard as an allophone of /ɣ/ between /æ/ or /ɔ/ and another vowel.
- [ũː] rarely exists as a phoneme, and is only attested in a few words with a palatal or alveolo-palatal initial.