Appendix:Zemeni pronunciation
Zemeni has 26 consonants, 5 vowels and 2 glides.
Standard Romanization
| Letter | IPA | English example | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | a | father | |
| b | b | bath | |
| ch | tʃ | watch | |
| d | d | dog | |
| dz | dz | adze | |
| e | e | bait | |
| f | f | food | |
| g | ɡ | good | |
| h | h | ham | |
| i | i | machine | |
| j | dʒ | jog | |
| k | k | skill | |
| kh | x | loch (Scottish English) | |
| ky | c ~ kʲ | skew | |
| l | l | left | |
| ly | ʎ | million | |
| m | m | man | |
| n | n | no | Assimilates to a following velar consonant. |
| ny | ɲ | onion | |
| o | o | moat | |
| p | p | span | |
| r | ɾ | battle | |
| ry | ɾʲ | medium | |
| s | s | see | |
| sh | ʃ | sheep | |
| t | t | stop | |
| ts | ts | pits | |
| u | u | rude | |
| v | v | voice | |
| w | w | wet | |
| y | j | young | |
| z | z | zone | |
| 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.
- Stress: When stress is not penultimate, it is marked with an acute accent over the stressed vowel.
Phonetics
Consonants
Zemeni has 26 phonemic consonants and 2 phonemic glides:
| Labial | Alveolar | Post-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ny [ɲ] | (ng [ŋ]) | |||
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | ky [c ~ kʲ] | k | ||
| voiced | b | d | g | ||||
| Affricate | voiceless | ts | ch [tʃ] | ||||
| voiced | dz | j [dʒ] | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | sh [ʃ] | kh [x] | h | |
| voiced | v | z | zh [ʒ] | ||||
| Approximant | w | y [j] | |||||
| Lateral | l | ly [ʎ] | |||||
| Tap | r [ɾ] | ry [ɾʲ] | |||||
Vowels
Zemeni has five phonemic vowels:
| Front | Mid | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
Stress
Zemeni words are generally stressed on their penultimate syllable.