Phonology and Phonetics
Eastern Canadian Inuit language variants have fifteen consonants and three vowels (which can be long or short).
Consonants are arranged with five places of articulation: bilabial, alveolar, palatal, velar and uvular; and three manners of articulation: voiceless plosives, voiced continuants, and nasals, as well as two additional sounds — voiceless fricatives. The Alaskan dialects have an additional manner of articulation, the retroflex, which was present in proto-Inuit language. Retroflexes have disappeared in all the Canadian and Greenlandic dialects. In Natsilingmiutut, the voiced palatal plosive /ɟ/ derives from a former retroflex.
Almost all Inuit language variants have only three basic vowels and make a phonological distinction between short and long forms of all vowels. The only exceptions are at the extreme edges of the Inuit world: parts of Greenland, and in western Alaska.
Read more about this topic: Inuit Language