Cerma (Kirma) is a Gur language of Burkina Faso. It is spoken by the Gouin people (sometimes called Ciramba or Gouin (Gwe, Gwen)).
Phonology Consonants +Consonants Labial Dental Palatal Dorsal/Laryngeal Labial-velarPlosive/Affricate voiceless voiced Nasal Continuant voiceless voiced () Lateral Trill Archiphoneme N Although is phonetically a labial-velar consonant, Lauber includes it in the dorsal/laryngeal column because its distribution is more like or than the labials or labial-velars. Lauber excludes , , and //N// from the continuant section because their distributions are different. is nasalized "in a nasal context" and a voiceless alveolar lateral at the end of an utterance. is a nasal tap "in a nasal context" and a voiceless tap at the end of an utterance. The archiphoneme //N// has the following allophones: before , , and before and before , , , and before , , and front vowels before , , , , and the central and back vowels before and also becomes . Hürlimann and Pike (1985) note that the palatals are affricates, using the symbols and .
Vowels +Vowels Front Central Back Close Mid Open-mid Open Lauber treats nasalization as a feature of the syllable, not the vowel. In closed syllables, become near-close . In the last syllable of the nuclear element of the phonological word before , are lengthened .
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