 Nivaclé has several linguistic traits that are rare elsewhere in the world or even unique.Its phonemic inventory has 21 "consonants" and 6 "vowels", including glottalized (ejective) stops and affricates, and a unique phoneme, /k͡l/.Even within single syllables the Nivaclé consonant cluster /tš/ (orthographic , IPA cluster /t+ʃ/) contrasts with the alveopalatal affricate /č/ (orthrographic , IPA /tʃ/), and the cluster /t+s/ contrasts with the alveolar affricate /ts/, both across morpheme boundaries and within single morphemes – this is unusual cross-linguistically.