Appendix:Tpaalha pronunciation

Tpaalha Language Navigation: Home, Phonology, Grammar, Vocabulary, Orthography

The Tpaalha language has 27 consonants, 8 vowels, and 2 glides.

Standard Romanization

Letter	IPA	English example	Notes
a	a	father
b	b	bog
d	ɖ	dog (Indian English)
dy	ɟ	gules
e	ɛ	bet
f	ɸ	food
g	g	good
gh	ɣ	—	Approximately like the r in French rouge.
h	h	ham
i	i	machine
k	k	skill
kh	x	loch (Scottish English)
l	ɭ	—	Like the rl in Swedish sorl.
lh	ꞎ	—	Like the ll in Welsh Llewelyn, but with the tongue curled backwards.
ly	ʎ	million
m	m	man
n	n ~ ɳ	no, —	The latter is pronounced like rn in Swedish garn.
ng	ŋ	sing
ny	ɲ	onion
o	ʌ	cut
p	p	span
r	ɻ	—	Like the r in English red, but with the tongue curled backwards.
s	s	see
sh	ʂ	sheep
sy	ç	huge
t	ʈ	time (Indian English)
ty	c	cute
u	ɯ	rude (some Calfornia varieties)	Like the u in rude in most English varieties, but with the lips unrounded.
v	β	voice
w	ʍ	what (some varieties)
y	j	yawn
z	z	zoo
zh	ʐ	azure
zy	ʝ	—	Like the h in "huge" but voiced.

Notes:

• Long vowels are written by doubling the vowel letter.

Phonetics

Some notable features of Tpaalha's sound system are the retroflex series of consonants including a lateral fricative, as well as unrounded back vowels.

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m [n]	n [n ~ ɳ]		ny [ɲ]	ng [ŋ]
Plosive	voiceless	p [p]		t [ʈ]	ty [c]	k [k]
	voiced	b [b]		d [ɖ]	dy [ɟ]	g [g]
Fricative	voiceless	f [ɸ]	s [s]	sh [ʂ]	sy [ç]	kh [x]	h [h]
	voiced	v [β]	z [z]	zh [ʐ]	zy [ʝ]	gh [ɣ]
Lateral	voiceless			lh [ꞎ]
	voiced			l [ɭ]	ly [ʎ]
Approximant	voiceless	w [ʍ]
	voiced	([w])		r [ɻ]	y [j]

Notes:

• [w] is of uncertain status as a phoneme. [ʍ] is more common, and usually is what is meant by w in the romanization.

Vowels

Tpaalha has five vowel qualities, with the three cardinal vowels having two lengths, making up a total of eight monophthongs:

		Front	Central	Back
Close	short	i [i]		u [ɯ]
	long	ii [iː]		uu [ɯː]
Mid		e [ɛ]		o [ʌ]
Open	short		a [a]
	long		aa [aː]

Diphthongs

There are a number of diphthongs, for example uo [ɯʌ] and ou [ʌɯ].