Appendix:Nulisü pronunciation
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The Nulisü language has 21 consonants, 14 vowels and 1 glide.
Standard Romanization
Letter | IPA | English example | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
a | a | father | |
ã | ã | — | A nasal vowel. Pronounced like the vowel in French danse. |
b | b | bog | |
d | d | dog | |
dh | ð | this | |
e | ɛ | get | |
ë | ɤ | cut | |
f | f | food | |
g | ɡ | good | |
h | h | ham | |
i | i | machine | |
ĩ | ĩ | — | A nasal vowel. Pronounced like the im in Portuguese rim. |
ï | ɯ | good (Southern California) | Like the oo in "mood" in other English varieties, but with the lips unrounded. |
k | k | skill | This sound features no aspiration. Aspiration is the puff of air that occurs in the "k" in "key". Compare this with the "k" in "ski", which has no aspiration. |
l | l | left | |
lh | l̥ | — | Pronounced like the above sound, but voicelessly, with great breathiness. |
m | m | man | |
mh | m̥ | — | Pronounced like the above sound, but voicelessly, with great breathiness. |
n | n | no | |
nh | n̥ | — | Pronounced like the above sound, but voicelessly, with great breathiness. |
ng | ŋ | ring | |
ngh | ŋ̊ | — | Pronounced like the above sound, but voicelessly, with great breathiness. |
o | o | moat | |
p | p | span | This sound features no aspiration. Aspiration is the puff of air that occurs in the "p" in "poke". Compare this with the "p" in "spoke", which has no aspiration. |
s | s | see | |
t | t | stop | This sound features no aspiration. Aspiration is the puff of air that occurs in the "t" in "take". Compare this with the "t" in "stake", which has no aspiration. |
th | θ | thin | |
u | u | rude | |
ũ | ũ | — | A nasal vowel. Pronounced like the um in Portuguese um. |
ü | y | — | Like the i in "machine" pronounced with rounded lips, or the ü in German für. |
v | v | voice | |
w | w | wet | |
z | z | zoo |
Notes:
- Long Vowels and Consonants: Held for slightly longer than their short counterparts, and written by doubling the letter. In the case of digraphs or trigraphs, only the first character is doubled.
Phonetics
Consonants
Bilabial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | voiceless | m̥ | n̥ | ŋ̊ | |||
voiced | m | n | ŋ | ||||
Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | |||
voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||||
Fricative | voiceless | f | θ | s | h | ||
voiced | v | ð | z | ||||
Approximant | voiceless | l̥ | |||||
voiced | w | l |
Vowels
Front | Central | Back | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Close | unrounded | i | ɯ | |
rounded | y | u | ||
long | iː | uː | ||
nasalized | ĩ | ũ | ||
Mid | unrounded | ɛ | ɤ | |
rounded | o | |||
Open | plain | a | ||
long | aː | |||
nasalized | ã |
Stress
Primary stress is assigned to the last syllable, unless the penultimate syllable is heavy and the final syllable is light, in which case stress is assigned to the penultimate syllable. Secondary stresses are assigned to every other syllable from the main stress, unless the foot would ordinarily assign stress elsewhere. So, for example, with a nonce form patakaala, the stresses would be [ˌpa.ta.ˈkaː.la].