Romansh phonology

Romansh has up to 26 consonant phonemes, of which two are only found in some varieties and one only in loanwords borrowed from German.

Notes:
 * only in some dialects, notably Surmiran, and only word-finally as in paung 'bread'.
 * often transcribed as the palatal stops and  in broad transcriptions.
 * only in some dialects, notably Putèr, and only word-finally as in amih, 'friend'.
 * only occurs in German loanwords such as halunc 'crook'.
 * also pronounced [] in some dialects of Sursilvan.

The voiced obstruents are fully voiced in Romansh and voiceless ones are non-aspirated, in contrast to Swiss German with which Romansh is in extensive contact. Voiced obstruents are devoiced word-finally however as in buob 'boy' >, chöd 'warm' > , saung 'blood' > , or clav 'key' >.

The vowel inventory varies somewhat between dialects, as the front rounded vowels // and // and are only found in Putèr and Vallader. They have historically been unrounded in the other varieties and are only found in recent loans from German there. They are not found in the pan-regional variety Rumantsch Grischun either. The now nearly extinct Sutsilvan dialects of the Heinzenberg have // as in plànta 'plant, tree', but this is etymologically unrelated to the found in Putèr and Vallader. The exact realization of the phoneme varies from [] to [] depending on the dialect:  /  'book'. It is regarded as either a marginal phoneme or not a separate phoneme from // at all by some linguists.

Word stress generally falls either on the last or the penult syllable of a word. Unstressed vowels are generally reduced to a Schwa, whose exact pronunciation varies between or  as in  'song'. Vowel length is predictable:
 * Unstressed vowels are short.
 * Stressed vowels in closed syllables (those with a coda) are:
 * long before
 * short elsewhere
 * Stressed vowels in open syllables are:
 * short before voiceless consonants
 * long elsewhere

The amount of diphthongs varies significantly between dialects. The Sursilvan dialects contains eleven diphthongs and four triphthongs (,, , and ). Other dialects have different inventories; Putèr for instance lacks, , and as well as the triphthongs, but has , which is missing in Sursilvan. A phenomenon known as "hardened diphthongs", in which the second vowel of a falling Diphthong is pronounced as, was once common in Putèr as well, but is nowadays limited to Surmiran: strousch 'barely >.