Appendix:Kezhwa pronunciation
The Kezhwa language has 21 consonants and 5 vowels.
Standard Romanization
| Letter | IPA | English example | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | a/ə | father or sofa | [a] when stressed, [ə] otherwise |
| b | b | bog | |
| d | d | dog | |
| dh | ð | this | |
| e | e/ɛ | gate or get | [ɛ] in closed syllables, [e] otherwise |
| f | f | fog | |
| g | g | good | |
| i | i | beet | |
| k | k | skill | Always unaspirated |
| l | l | left | |
| m | m | man | |
| n | n | no | |
| o | o/ɔ | tote or law | [ɔ] in closed syllables, [o] otherwise |
| p | p | span | Always unaspirated |
| r | ɾ | battle | |
| s | s | see | |
| sh | ʃ | shade | |
| t | t | stop | Always unaspirated |
| th | θ | thing | |
| u | u | rude | |
| v | v | voice | |
| w | w | wet | |
| y | j | yet | |
| z | z | zoo | |
| zh | ʒ | azure | |
| ‘ | ʔ | uh-oh |
Phonetics
Consonants
| Labial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m /m/ | n /n/ | ||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p /p/ | t /t/ | k /k/ | ' /ʔ/ | |
| voiced | b /b/ | d /d/ | g /g/ | |||
| Fricative | voiceless | f /f/ | th /θ/, s /s/ | sh /ʃ/ | ||
| voiced | v /v/ | dh /ð/, z /z/ | zh /ʒ/ | |||
| Approximant | w /w/ | l /l/ | y /j/ | |||
| Tap | r /ɾ/ | |||||
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i /i/ | u /u/ | |
| Mid | e /e~ɛ/ | o /o~ɔ/ | |
| Open | a /a~ə/ |
Stress
Kezhwa words are stressed on one of their last three syllabes, most commonly the penultimate. The main stress does not move when suffixes are added to the root, unless it ends up falling before the antepenultimate syllable.
Phonotactics
Kezhwa's syllabes have a (C)(C)V(C) structure, the second consonant of a syllable-initial cluster must be an approximant. Kezhwa does not have diphthongs and does not allow vowel sequences within a word.