Guiqiong Phonology 1   中文 བོད་ཡིག by Sun Hongkai 2 draft translation by Jon Lambert 3   The largest areas where Guiqiong is spoken are along both sides of the Dadu River in the Yutong District of Kangding County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Region, Sichuan Province. Small areas where Guiqiong is spoken are located in Luding County and in the northwest part of Tianquan County. About 7000 people use Guiqiong. Disparity within Guiqiong is not large. Guiqiong spoken in different places can be understood by speakers in other regions.  Guiqiong spoken in Maiben Village in the Yutong District of Kangding County is taken as representative in the following brief description. 4 (A)  Initial Consonants There are 43 single consonant initial sounds. Explanation: 1. In the speech of the elderly and middle-aged people, the retroflex set and the laminal set are separate. In the speech of the younger generation, these sets are mostly indistinguishable from each other. 2. In the speech of the elderly and middle-aged people, there is a diametrical difference between the uvular set and velar set. In the speech of the younger generation, the sounds of these sets are free to transform. 3. When the initial part of a syllable is a vowel, a glottal stop always precedes the vowel. Example words: 5 There are 21 initial consonant clusters. All of them are formed by an initial nasal sound followed by a basic consonant. The location of the initial nasal sound and basic consonant is the same. The initial nasal sound can be combined with a voiced consonant, or with an unvoiced or aspirated consonant. 6 “n” serves as the sign of this nasal sound. Example words: (B) Vowels There are 19 single vowel final sounds, among which are 11 basic vowels and 8 nasalized vowels. Example words: There are 16 compound final vowels. /i/, /u/ and /y/ medial sounds plus the main vowel form the diphthongs. Example words: (C)Tones There are 4 tones. Among them, the flat middle tone sometimes changes to a falling tone. Below are the pitches of the four tones, and example words.   Footnotes 1 孙宏开。“贵琼语语音系统”《藏缅语语音和词汇》中国社会科学出版社，1991年1月。227-230。 2 Sun Hongkai and Guiqiong speaking community have given permission to share the original article and translate it into English. The article is based on research Sun Hongkai did in Kangding in 1981. Sun Hongkai suggested reading a new text called 中国的语言 for updated and more detailed content. 3 Translated October, 2010. With utmost gratitude, I’d like to thank Dr. David Bradley, Wang Shiying and Yuan Li for helpful suggestions regarding this translation. 4 In 2010, Maiben, 麦本 is written as 麦崩 in Chinese. 5 Some of the example words for consonant sounds and initial consonant clusters listed in the original document are not included in this translation. 6 There are a couple places where there may be problems with the translation (e.g., 清音、清送气音 as “an unvoiced or aspirated consonant”, 高升 as “high rising”, 复元音 as “diphthongs”, 麦芒 as “top of the wheat”, and 柏香 as “cedar incense). Apologies for mistranslations; all mistakes are my own.