Appendix:Irathient pronunciation
Irathient Language Navigation: Home, Phonology, Grammar, Vocabulary, Dictionary, Orthography, Dialogue
Standard Romanization
Irathient | IPA | English example | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
a | ɑ | father | |
ai | ɑi | nice | |
b | b | bad | |
d | d | deck | |
e | ɛ | get | |
ei | e | gate | |
ə | ə | sofa | |
f | f | feather | only used in borrowed words, not native to Irathient |
g | g | goat | never as in genius |
gy | ɟ | close to joke, eggyolk | used for /j/ in borrowed words |
h | h | hop | always pronounced, even if at end of a word (except for sh and th digraphs) |
hw | ʍ | when | |
i | i | machine | |
k | kʰ | kite | |
l | l | love | always clear, never velarized "dark" [ɫ] |
m | m | matter | |
n | n | never | |
ng | ŋ | sing | can occur at the start of a word; never as in anger |
ngg | ŋg | anger | |
ny | ɲ | onion | |
o | o | hope | |
p | pʰ | pike | |
r | r | Spanish perro | may reduce to tap in some clusters |
s | s | sad | |
sh | ʃ | shack | used for [tʃ] when borrowing words |
t | tʰ | take | |
th | θ | thin | never as in that |
u | u | crude | |
v | v | very | allophone of /w/ before /u/ and /o/ |
w | w | war | |
z | z | zebra |
In some online sources /ɑ/ is spelled aa and the schwa /ə/ is spelled with a single a, as in aarko (DJP Tumblr). In that system, the diphthong ai is spelled aai.
Word Stress
- Most words are stressed on the penultimate syllable.
- If a word's final or penultimate syllable contains ə, the stress is antepenultimate.
- Imperatives involve an accent shift towards the end of the word; ǝthít! go! (S1E1).
- Some verb auxiliary forms take a final accent.
- Some possessive suffixes are written attached to the noun, but do not cause a shift in accent, as in rólame my roller (S1E1).
- Borrowed words may have an irregular stress accent.
In dialogue meant for actors, the stress is always indicated with an acute accent.
Phonotactics
Irathient allows various consonant clusters in onsets and codas, the maximal possible syllable is CCCVCCC, most consonants may be geminated but vowel sequences very rarely occur. Adjacent obstruents must agree in voicing, voicing assimilation is regressive. Sonorants and [v], an allophone of /w/, do not affect voicing. Syllables do not end with /l/ or /w/, and /h/ does not appear after stops and fricatives.