Tshwa phonology

The Cire-cire dialect has the following consonant inventory:

The clicks have a very uneven distribution: Only a dozen words begin with one of the palatal clicks, and these are replaced by dental clicks among younger speakers. Only half a dozen words start with one of the alveolar clicks, and half a dozen more with one of the affricated clicks. These rather marginal sounds are placed in parentheses in the chart.

Tsoa has the five vowels. It is not clear if Tsoa has long vowels, or simply sequences of identical vowels.

There are two tones, high and low, plus a few cases of mid tone.