Phonology & Orthography
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A brief ovwerview of the sounds and letters of the Nousuerian language.
This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 3 May 2016, 06:06.
[comments] nsvlessonslesson 1
1. Lesson #2 - Tjena!
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Nousuerian orthography is very phonological; in that everything is pronounced the way that it is written and vice versa. There are 23 consonant sounds in the Nousuerian language. However, instead of a unique letter for each sound, some letters are combined to represent these sounds. For the most part, every letter is pronounced the same as in English. There some exceptions, but no worries, they are listed below.
| Written As | Pronounced As |
|---|---|
| rn | ɳ |
| rt | ʈ |
| rd | ɖ |
| rs | ʂ |
| rl | ɭ |
| tj | ɕ |
| sj | ɧ |
Vowels are always pronounced as they are written.
| Written As | Pronounced As |
|---|---|
| a | a |
| e | e |
| o | o |
| u | u |
| i | i |
| è | ɛ |
| ò | ɔ |
| eu | ø |
There are also several nasalized consonants in Nousuerian. They are only nasalized at the end of a word.
| Written As | Pronounced As |
|---|---|
| an | ɑ̃ |
| en | ɛ̃ |
| on | ɔ̃ |
| un | œ̃ |
It should also be noted that at the end of a word and unstressed, a is pronounced like a schwa.
When i or u precedes another vowel, they form a diphthong with j or w, respectively. If a diphthong precedes an n, it is not nasalized when at the end of a word.
Examples:
avion (airplane) is pronounced afjon
moien (average) is pronounced mojen
lua (away from) is pronounced lwa
seduisan (attractive) is pronounced sedwisɑ̃
One syllable and non-compounds are stressed on the final syllable. Compounds are double stressed; they have a falling tonal stress on the last syllable of the first word and a rising tonal stress on the last syllable of the second word. When one is inflected, the stress stays on the same syllable, so the endings aren't stressed.
Sentence Stress
When the subject of a sentence is a noun, it is stressed. Pronouns, however, are unstressed. When the object is a noun, it is also stressed. Pronouns, like subjects, are normally unstressed. Object pronouns, however, are stressed when they are at the beginning of the sentence. For contrast, objects are stressed.
When there is a verb but no object, the verb is stressed. However, when there is an object, the verb is unstressed. This also applies to verb complements, which are stressed while the verb isn’t. For contrast, verbs are stressed. Adverbials are usually stressed whether first or last in the sentence.
Word Stress
Word stress is found only in words that have sentence stress.
1. Non-compounds – these words are pronouns monosyllabically.
2. Compounds – these words have a stress on each of the parts of the compound, but the melody of each part is different. The first stress has a falling pitch and the last stress has a rising pitch.
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