Appendix:Fjerdan pronunciation

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

The Fjerdan language has 22 consonants, 9 vowels, and 2 glides.

Standard Romanization

Letter	IPA	English example	Notes
a	ɑ	father
ai	ai	lie	Transcribed as [aj] in some online sources, but as [ai] here for internal consistency on the wiki.
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.
hr	ʀ̥	—	Voiceless equivalent of r.
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	it's, uh-oh	The apostrophe is used to write clitics, and as such 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 [ai].

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 22 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	voiceless						hr [ʀ̥]
	voiced						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 [ai].

Phonotactics

Vowel sequences are broken up by an epenthetic glottal stop [ʔ], where vowel hiatus would otherwise occur. This applies both within words (e.g. for clitics) and across word boundaries.