Koromfe phonology

The tap is an allophone of, which occurs as  only word-initially and after nasal consonants. There also exists a spirantised allophone of, i.e. ; phonetic only occurs word-initially, after a nasal consonant, or between two ATR high vowels. Before nasal vowels the approximants and  are nasalised, and the nasalised  in slow, careful speech can even harden to. However, there is no phonemic palatal series of consonants in Koromfe.

The vowel system comprises 5 non-ATR vowels and their ATR counterparts. All vowels occur both orally and (context-free) nasally, and long and short, giving 40 full vowels. There is also a schwa which alternates with zero and disappears in faster, more casual speech.