Appendix:Ts'íts'àsh pronunciation

Ts'íts'àsh Language Navigation: Home, Phonology, Grammar, Vocabulary, Orthography, Dialogue

The Ts'íts'àsh language has 12 consonants, 8 vowels, 3 tones, and no glides.

Standard Romanization

Letter	IPA	English example	Notes
a	a	father
b	b	bad
d	d	dog
e	e	bait
f	ɸ	food
i	i	machine
k	k	skill
k'	k’	—	Produced by holding your breath at the same time as making the above sound.
kh	x	loch (Scottish English)	Pronounced like the ch in German Buch.
o	o	moat
p	p	span
r	r/ɾ	—, battle	Pronounced like the rr and r in Spanish perro and pero, respectively.
s	s	see
sh	ʃ	sheep
t	t	stop
t'	t’	—	Produced by holding your breath at the same time as making the above sound.
u	u	rude

Notes:

• Tone: High tone [˥] is written with an acute accent ◌́, low tone [˩] with the grave accent ◌̀, and falling tone [˥˩] with the circumflex ◌̂.

Phonetics

Ts'íts'àsh has the following phonemes:

Consonants

There are 12 consonants:

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar
Plosive	voiceless	p [p]	t [t]		k [k]
	voiced	b [b]	d [d]
	ejective		t' [t’]		k' [k’]
Fricative		f [ɸ]	s [s]	sh [ʃ]	kh [x]
Trill/Tap			r [r/ɾ]

There are no nasal sounds because in the original character design drawings for Elemental the fire beings lacked noses.

Vowels

There are five pure vowels:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i [i]		u [u]
Mid	e [e]		o [o]
Open		a [a]

There are also three diphthongs: ai [ai], au [au], and oi [oi].

Tones

Vowels have one of three tones:

High	Low	Falling
◌́ [˥]	◌̀ [˩]	◌̂ [˥˩]

Phonotactics

The maximal syllable structure is (O)N(C), where O stands for onset, N for nucleus, and C for coda. An onset can be either a single consonant or a plosive followed by a fricative. A nucleus can consist of either a vowel or a fricative. A coda can be a trill, fricative, or a plosive followed by a fricative.