Appendix:Noalath pronunciation

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The Noalath language has 24 consonants, 7 full vowels and 4 reduced vowels.

Standard Romanization

Letter	IPA	Example	Notes
a	ɑ/ǝ	father or sofa	[ɑ] occurs in stressed syllables; [ǝ] elsewhere.
b	b	bog
ch	tʃ	chop
d	d	dog
dh	ð	then
e	ɛ/ǝ	bet or sofa	[ɛ] occurs in stressed syllables; [ǝ] elsewhere.
f	f	food
g	g	good
h	h	ham
i	i/ɪ	beet or bit	[i] occurs in stressed syllables; [ɪ] elsewhere.
j	dʒ	jet
k	k	skill
l	l	left
m	m	man
n	n	no
ng	ŋ	sing	Can occur word-initially.
ny	ɲ	New York (certain pronunciations)	Like Spanish ñ.
o	ɔ/ǝ	caught or sofa	Lower than regular [o]. [ɔ] occurs in stressed syllables; [ǝ] elsewhere.
ö	œ/ǝ	French peur or sofa	Like e pronounced with rounded lips. [œ] occurs in stressed syllables; [ǝ] elsewhere.
p	p	span
r	ɾ	battle
s	s	see
sh	ʃ	sheep
t	t	stop
th	θ	think
u	u/ʊ	rude or good	[u] occurs in stressed syllables; [ʊ] elsewhere.
ü	y/ʏ	No English equivalent, [y] is the French pur	[y] (like [i] with rounded lips) occurs in stressed syllables; [ʏ] (like [ɪ] with rounded lips) elsewhere.
v	v	voice
y	j	yawn
zh	ʒ	casual

Phonetics

Noalath has a number of vowels with tense-lax pairings that should be familiar to English speakers. It also features front rounded vowels.

Consonants

		Labial	Coronal	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m [m]	n [n]	ny [ɲ]	ng [ŋ]
Plosive	voiceless	p [p]	t [t]		k [k]
	voiced	b [b]	d [d]		g [g]
Affricate	voiceless		ts [ts]	ch [tʃ]
	voiced			j [dʒ]
Fricative	voiceless	f [f]	th [θ], s [s]	sh [ʃ]		h [h]
	voiced	v [v]	dh [ð]	zh [ʒ]
Lateral			l [l]
Approximants			r [ɾ]	y [j]

Vowels

Noalath distinguishes 7 vowels in stressed syllables, but only 4 in unstressed ones, as [ɛ œ ɔ ɑ] all merge into [ǝ] when unstressed. The high vowels [i y u] also become the more centralized [ɪ ʏ ʊ] in unstressed syllables.

	Front	Back
Close	i [i~ɪ], ü [y~ʏ]	u [u~ʊ]
Mid	e [ɛ~ǝ], ö [œ~ǝ]	o [ɔ~ǝ]
Open		a [ɑ~ǝ]

Diphthongs

Noalath has four diphthongs: ai ([ǝi]), oa ([ɔǝ]), öa ([œǝ]) and ea ([ɛǝ]).

Mutations

There are three consonant mutations (porad) in Noalath. The unmutated form of a consonant is called the Still State (Hiyarach Laid), while the mutations are called the Change of Water (Poradach Desha), the Change of Stone (Poradach Molt) and the Change of Wind (Poradach Pöri).

All of Noalath's consonants except [m] mutate, usually after affixes or function words, though mutations also occur by themselves due to analogy.

Still State	Change of Water	Change of Stone	Change of Wind
n	ny	n
p	p	b	f
t	ch	d	th
ch		j	sh
k		g	h
b	b	m	v
d	j	n	dh
j		ny	zh
g		ng	h
f	y	p	(deleted)
th	sh	t
s		ts	h
sh		ch
h		(deleted)
v	y	b	(deleted)
l		n	l
r	zh	d	r
y	y		zh

Some consonants occur syllable-initially as a result of mutation only and therefore lack a Still State.

Mutations have unpredictable effects on words starting with a vowel.