| Pinyin | |
| Region: | Northwest Region, Cameroon |
| Date: | 2001 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Niger-Congo |
| Fam2: | Atlantic–Congo |
| Fam3: | Volta-Congo |
| Fam4: | Benue–Congo |
| Fam5: | Bantoid |
| Fam6: | Southern Bantoid |
| Fam7: | Grassfields |
| Fam8: | Eastern Grassfields |
| Fam9: | Mbam-Nkam |
| Fam10: | Ngemba |
| Iso3: | pny |
| Glotto: | piny1238 |
| Glottorefname: | Pinyin |
| Notice: | IPA |
Pinyin is a Grassfields language spoken by some 27,000 people in the Northwest Region of Cameroon.
| Phoneme | Allophones | Environment | Orthography | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| p | p | |||
| pʰ | Before /u/ in an open syllable. | |||
| b | After /ɴ̩/. | |||
| β | Between vowels within a root. | |||
| t | t | |||
| k | k | Beginning of words and of roots within words, and after /ɴ̩/. | ||
| ʔ | Only C found at ends of words. | |||
| kʷ | kʷ | |||
| l | l | In roots. | ||
| ɾ | In suffixes. | |||
| d | After /ɴ̩/. | |||
| ɣ | ɣ | |||
| ɡ | After /ɴ̩/. | |||
| ɣʷ | ɡʷ | After /ɴ̩/. | ||
| f | f | |||
| s | s | /ts/ after /ɴ̩/. | ||
| ts | ts | |||
| z | z | |||
| dz | After /ɴ̩/. | |||
| ʃ | ʃ | /tʃ/ after /ɴ̩/. | ||
| tʃ | tʃ | |||
| ʒ | ʒ | |||
| dʒ | After /ɴ̩/. | |||
| m | m | |||
| n | n | |||
| ɲ | ɲ | |||
| ŋ | ŋ | |||
| N̩ | m̩ n̩ ŋ̍ | Homorganic with following C. Carries tone. | , | |
| w | w | |||
| ɥ | ɥ | |||
| j | j |
Sequences are:
py (mby), ly (ndy), ty, ky, ngy, my, kẅ, ngẅ (= pronounced as //kʷj, ɡʷj//)
pw (mbw), lw (ndw), tw, tsw, chw, shw, sw, zw, zhw, nw, nyw, ŋw
All noun and verb roots begin with a consonant; initial vowels are necessarily prefixes. Only pronounced as //a, ɨ// occur in prefixes or at the beginning of words, and only pronounced as //ə// occurs in suffixes. pronounced as //ɨ, y// do not occur at the ends of words.
| Phoneme | Orthography | |
|---|---|---|
| i | i | |
| y | ʉ | |
| ɛ | e | |
| a | a | |
| ɔ | o | |
| u | u | |
| ə | ə | |
| ɨ | ɨ |
All known long vowels may occur medially or at ends of words, none at the beginning, though long pronounced as //ɛ, y// are not attested. Long vowels are written double: aa, əə, ii, ‿ɨɨ, oo, uu. Diphthongs ie, iə, ʉə, ɨə, uə take a single tone.
Tones are high, mid, low, rising, falling. They are written as in IPA, apart from low, which is not written: á ā a ǎ â. Falling tone is largely confined to suffixes, and rising tone is rare, found only on a few nouns such as tǎ 'father'.