Belait phonology

General references on Belait phonology include Martin (1990) on Metting Belait and Noor Alifah Abdullah (1992) on Labi Belait. This sketch is based on the Metting dialect. Other dialects may vary in their phonology and lexicon.

Vowels
Metting Belait has five monophthong vowels /i, u, e, o, a/. There is one diphthong /iə/.

The phoneme /e/ is realised as [ə] in non-final syllables, and as [ɛ] and [e] in final syllables.

Syllable Structure
Lexical roots are disyllabic. Final syllables are typically (C)V((C)C). Non-final are typically ((C)C)V(C).