Akha has 26 possible initial consonants, including a “zero” consonant (a glottal stop before a word beginning with a vowel sound), 13 vowels and five tones. All vowels in pure Akha are simple, but depending on geographical location, Akhas will add one to three extra diphthongs to their speech to account for sounds of borrowed words from the majority languages. The tone of a word is absolutely necessary to the meaning. Many consonant-vowel combinations exist as five distinct words, depending on the tone with which the word (vowel) is said. While Akha has a number of regional dialects, each with borrowed words from the respective majority culture, the base phonology of Akha is very consistent.