Appendix:Fjerdan pronunciation
The Fjerdan language has 21 consonants, 9 vowels, and 2 glides.
Standard Romanization
| Letter | IPA | English example | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | |
| ' | ∅, ʔ | —, uh-oh | The apostrophe is used to write clitics, and does not represent any sound, but it sometimes coincides with an epenthetic [ʔ] when the application of the clitic results in two subsequent vowels, which for example distinguishes a'i [ɑʔi] from ai [aj]. |
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:
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | |||
| Close | i | ü [y] | u | |
| Mid | e | ö [ø] | (e [ǝ]) | o |
| Open | ä [æ] | a [ɑ] | ||
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.
- Vowel sequences are also pronounced with an epenthetic glottal stop between them, where vowel hiatus would otherwise occur.