Kala Lagaw Ya is the only Australian language to have the alveolar fricatives and . However, these have allophonic variants and , which are the norm in Australia languages (usually and but non-contrasting). These latter two are allophones in that in all environments and can appear, while and can not appear at the end of a word; note that this allophony is very similar to that of the neighbouring Papuan language Bine. All the stops, except for the alveolars and , have fricative allophones, thus can be or , can be or , or , and so on. Furthermore, it is one of the few Australian languages with fully functioning voiced-voiceless distinctions (, , , , ) — and one of the few without retroflex stops.