of long vowels), 36 consonants, 5 semi-vowels, 3 sibilants, 1 aspirate, and many diphthongs. Like the other Indo-Aryan languages, it has both long and short vowels and syllables with long vowels may appear to be stressed. Different types of nasal vowels are a special feature of the Konkani language. The palatal and alveolar stops are affricates. The palatal glides are truly palatal but otherwise the consonants in the palatal column are alveopalatal. The voiced/voiceless contrasts are found only in the stops and affricates. The fricatives are all voiceless and the sonorants are all voiced. The initial vowel-syllable is shortened after the aspirates and fricatives. Many speakers substitute unaspirated consonants for aspirates. Aspirates in a non-initial position are rare and only occur in careful speech. Palatalisation/non-palatisation is found in all obstruents, except for palatal and alveolars. Where a palatalised alveolar is expected, a palatal is found instead. In the case of sonorants, only unaspirated consonants show this contrast, and among the glides only labeo-velar glides exhibit this. Vowels show a contrast between oral and nasal ones Vowels One of the most distinguishing features of Konkani phonology is the use of , the close-mid central vowel, instead of the schwa found in Hindustani and Marathi. Whereas many Indian languages use only one of the three front vowels, represented by the Devanagari grapheme ए, Konkani uses three: , and . Nasalizations exist for all vowels except for . Consonants The consonants in Konkani are similar to those in Marathi. Grammar Konkani grammar is similar to other Indo-Aryan languages. Notably, Konkani grammar is also influenced by Dravidian languages. It cannot be described as a stress-timed language, nor as a tonal language. Speech can be classified into any of the following parts: naam (noun) sarvanaam (pronoun) visheshan (adjective) kriyapad (verb) kriyavisheshana (adverb) ubhayanvayi avyaya shabdayogi avyaya kevalaprayogi avyaya Like most of the Indo-Aryan languages, Konkani is an SOV language, meaning among other things that not only is the verb found at the end of the clause but also modifiers and complements tend to precede the head and postpositions are far more common than prepositions. In terms of syntax, Konkani is a head-last language, unlike English, which is an SVO language. Almost all the verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and the avyayas are either tatsama or tadbhava. Verbs Verbs are either tatsama or tadbhava: Present indefinite of the auxiliary is fused with present participle of the primary verb,