Appendix:Bodzvokhan pronunciation

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

The Bodzvokhan language has 25 consonants, 8 vowels and 1 glide.

Standard Romanization

Letter	IPA	English example	Notes
a	a	In between father and what.
b	b	bother
ch	tʃ	each
d	d	dog
dz	dz	adze
e	ɛ	bet
ǝ	ə	sofa
f	f	fish
g	ɡ	good
h	ħ	No English equivalent	You can make this sound by attempting to fog up a mirror.
i	i	beet
j	dʒ	jam
k	k	skill
kh	x ~ χ	Bach, or Chanukkah
l	l	left
m	m	man
n	n	no	Assimilates to a following uvular consonant.
ng	ŋ	wing	Assimilates to a following uvular consonant.
ny	ɲ	Spanish señor	Assimilates to a following uvular consonant.
o	ɔ	caught
ö	œ	German Göttin	Like the e in bet, but with lips rounded.
p	p	span
q	q	No English equivalent	Like a k, but pronounced further back in the throat, with the back of the tongue contacting the uvula.
r	ʁ	No English equivalent	Pronounced like the r in French rouge.
s	s	see
sh	ʃ	sheep
t	t	stop
ts	ts	pits
u	u	futon
ü	y	German über	Like the i in machine, but with lips rounded.
v	v	voice
y	j	yes
z	z	zoo
zh	ʒ	azure

Phonetics

Bodzvokhan has a high-low vowel harmony system, and is quite unique, phonologically speaking, but it retains some quirks that have come directly from the Russian language through contact and heavy borrowing. These are reflected in the orthography, but not the romanization.

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal
Nasal		m [m]	n [n]	ny [ɲ]	ng [ŋ ~ ɴ]
Plosive	voiceless	p [p]	t [t], ts [ts]	ch [tʃ]	k [k]	q [q]
	voiced	b [b]	d [d], dz [dz]	j [dʒ]	g [g]
Fricative	voiceless	f [f]	s [s]	sh [ʃ]	kh [x ~ χ]		h [ħ]
	voiced	v [v]	z [z]	zh [ʒ]
Sonorants			l [l]	y [j]		r [ʁ]

Notes:

• [ŋ] is a phoneme in its own right, but [ɴ] is an allophonic nasal that occurs when preceding a uvular consonant.
• The nasals and the liquids may be syllabic.

Vowels

Bodzvokhan has 8 phonetically distinct vowels:

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i [i], ü [y]	ǝ [ɨ~ə]	u [u]
Mid	e [ɛ], ö [œ]		o [ɔ]
Open		a [a]

The vowel written ǝ has a native pronunciation of [ə], but is sometimes pronounced [ɨ] under influence from Russian. The vowels [i y u ǝ] do not usually occur in the same words as the vowels [ɛ œ ɔ a].

Diphthongs

Bodzvokhan doesn't have any native diphthongs; where they occur, they will have been borrowed.