Appendix:Fjerdan pronunciation

Fjerdan Language Navigation: Home, Phonology, Grammar, Vocabulary, Orthography, Dialogue

The Fjerdan language has 21 consonants, 9 vowels, and 2 glides.

Standard Romanization

Letter	IPA	English example	Notes
'	ʔ, ∅	uh-oh, —	Not phonemic. Written between two subsequent vowels, where an epenthetic [ʔ] is pronounced, which for example distinguishes a'i [ɑʔi] from ai [aj]. Also used to write clitics, where it does not represent any sound.
a	ɑ	father
ai	aj	lie
ä	æ	cat
b	b	bother
ch	tʃ	watch
d	d	dog
e	e ~ ǝ	bait, sofa	Pronounced [ǝ] in unstressed syllables, [e] elsewhere.
f	f	food
g	ɡ	good
h	h ~ ç	ham, huge	Pronounced [ç] after front vowels, [h] elsewhere.
hw	ʍ	what (certain pronunciations)
hy	ç	huge
i	i	machine
j	dʒ	jog
k	k	skill
l	l	left
m	m	man
n	n	no	Assimilates to a following velar consonant.
ng	ŋ	sing
o	o	moat
ö	ø	—	Like the ai in bait pronounced with rounded lips.
p	p	span
r	ʀ	—	Pronounced roughly like the r in French rouge.
s	s	see
sh	ʃ	sheep
t	t	stop
u	u	rude
ü	y	—	Like the i in machine pronounced with rounded lips.
v	v	voice
w	w	wet
y	j	young
zh	ʒ	casual

Notes:

• Geminates: To pronounce a geminate consonant, simply pronounce it twice. They are written by doubling the consonant letter. In the case of digraphs, only the first letter of the digraph is doubled.

Phonetics

Consonants

Fjerdan has 21 phonemic consonants, and 2 glides.

		Labial	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n			ng [ŋ]
Stop/Affricate	voiceless	p	t	ch [tʃ]		k		([ʔ])
	voiced	b	d	j [dʒ]		ɡ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	sh [ʃ]	hy [ç]	hw [ʍ]		h
	voiced	v		zh [ʒ]
Approximant		w	l		y [j]
Trill							r [ʀ]

Vowels

Fjerdan has 8 phonemic monophthongal vowels.

Diphthongs

The Fjerdan language has the diphthong ai [aj].

Phonotactics

Some key rules for the phonetic realization of Fjerdan words include:

• Word-initial vowels are realized with an epenthetic glottal stop [ʔ] before them, which is not written in the romanization.
• Subsequent vowels are also pronounced with a medial epenthetic glottal stop, where vowel hiatus would otherwise occur. This glottal stop can co-occur with an apostrophe (') in the romanization, at least in some cases in order to prevent ambiguity with diphthongs.