Japanese Phonology

Phonemic consonants in Tokyo dialect.

	Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive	p b	t d				k ɡ
Affricate			tˢ
Nasal	m	n					ɴ
Flap				ɽ
Fricative			s z					h
Approximant					j	w

• /p, t, tˢ, k/ are moderately aspirated
• /tˢ/ is geminated as /ttˢ/
• /b/ is typically realized as [b], but can become [β] or [v̠] in rapid speech.
• /ɡ/ often becomes [ɣ] intervocalically. It becomes [ŋ] medially in older speakers, with some exceptions.
• /ɽ/ is postalveolar medially. It is typically realized as an affricate [d̠^ɹ̝̆] initially and after /ɴ/. It may be postalveolar [l̠] in any position. Sometimes it may be approximant [ɹ].
• Phonemic /tˢ/ is normally realized as a cluster [ts]. It is palatalized to [tɕ] before /i/.
• /n/ is palatalized to [ɲ̟] before /i/. Some speakers realize it as alveolar before /u/.
• Consonants are strongly palatalized before /i/; /Ci/ typically becomes [Cʲi].
• /ɴ/, the moraic nasal, has variable realization.

Bibliography

• Okada, Hideo. "Japanese." In Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. Cambridge University Press, 1999.