Phonology

The phonemes of Modern Standard Javanese.

 Vowels

Front	Central	Back
i		u
e	ə	o
	a

The vowels /i u e o/ are pronounced [ɪ ʊ ɛ ɔ] respectively in closed syllables. In open syllables, /e o/ are also [ɛ ɔ] when the followinɡ vowel is /i u/ in an open syllable, or /ə/, or identical (/e...e/, /o...o/). The main characteristic of the standard dialect of Surakarta is that /a/ is pronounced [ɔ] in word-final open syllables, and in any open penultimate syllable before such an [ɔ].

 Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m		ɳ	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive/Affricate		p b̥	t d̥	ʈ ɖ̥	tʃ dʒ̊	k ɡ̊	ʔ
Fricative				ʂ			h
Approximant	Central			ɽ	j	w
	Lateral			ɭ

The Javanese voiced phonemes are not in fact voiced but voiceless, with breathy voice on the following vowel. In The sounds of the world's languages, the distinction of phonation in the plosives is described as one of stiff voice versus slack voice.
A Javanese syllable can be of the following type: CSVC. C=consonant, S= sonorant (/j/, /r/, /l/, /w/ or any nasal consonant) and V=vowel. In Modern Javanese, a bi-syllabic root is of the following type: nCsvVnCsvVC. As in other Austronesian languages, native Javanese roots consist of two syllables; words consisting of more than three syllables are broken up into groups of bi-syllabic words for pronunciation.
Javanese, together with Madurese, are the only languages of Western Indonesia to possess a distinction between retroflex and dental phonemes. (Madurese also possesses aspirated phonemes including at least one aspirated retroflex phoneme.) These letters are transcribed as "th" and "dh" in the modern Roman script, but previously by the use of a dot: "ṭ" and "ḍ". Some scholars assume this might be an influence of the Sanskrit, but others believe this could be an independent development within the Austronesian super family. Incidentally, a sibilant before a retroflex stop in Sanskrit loanwords is pronounced as a retroflex sibilant whereas in modern Indian languages it is pronounced as a palatal sibilant. Though Acehnese and Balinese also possess a retroflex voiceless stop, this is merely an allophone of /t/.