Consonants

/p t ts tʃ k/
/b d dz dʒ g/
/ɗ/
/s ʃ x h/
/z ʒ ɣ/
/m n l r j w/
/a ə i u/

Complex consonants, consisting of a non-velar consonant and a velar consonant agreeing in voice, are permitted: e.g. /tk-/, /tx-/, /mŋ-/. These were probably just velarized labials/coronals on an underlying level, although the alveolars and postalveolars can also occur as the initial component of a complex velar element.

The aspirate series may have existed in the proto-language, but some instances are definite Amqoli innovations: compare Amqoli chxem, phrus, tsxur to Deghuri chapeng, porus, tsoxun. (Here we see three of the four main sources of aspirates in Amqoli: C+labial clusters, C+x clusters, and a-devoicing.

This is the reason for the continued prohibition of plosive+labial clusters in Amqoli, although this was also true in the proto-language.

There is evidence for a palatalized labial series; it may be that palatalization was contrastive on all consonants but the uvulars and semivowels, and the alveolars and postalveolars were simply palatalized dentals and velars.

The implosives are preserved only in Deghuri. In Amqoli, ɓ merges unconditionally into b (as does w); the more frequent ɗ appears to become various sorts of sonorant.

Vowels

There were five vowels: /a e o i u/. A length contrast existed, but was rare in roots. Stress was contrastive. It is probable that, at a prior (and probably less agglutinative) stage of the language, mid vowels could not appear in unstressed syllables, but at the stage from which the Kharidze languages descend, this restriction had laxed.

Contrastive stress is generally absent from the Kharidze languages. It is possible to reconstruct from Amqoli syncope, certain lenition processes in Deghuri, and the tones of the highly divergent Rengni language; however, the sources do not always agree. In the case of the aforementioned pair chxem and chapeng, Rengni has chàum, agreeing on a reconstruction *chapém; but where Amqoli has phrus, Rengni has pãsh and Deghuri is uninformative, so the proto-form may be either *párus or *parús, and where Amqoli and Rengni have chke and chài respectively, agreeing on a proto-form chaké, Deghuri has chage, implying that stress was on the second syllable. It is likely that there was significant dialectal variation in stress in Proto-Kharidze.