PRONUNCIATION OF CEQLI
First, an orthography note. Ceqli can be written in all lower-case letters or all upper-case letters. When writing about Ceqli in English, I use conventional English style capitalization, hence "Ceqli" is capitalized. And you can just follow English usage in capitalization if you like. And I use capital letters to show stress on some occasions in what follows on this page.
The Ceqli language uses the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet. 14 of them are considered consonants in Ceqli:
B as in Boy
C as in CHin
D as in DuD
F as in FluFF
G as in Good
H as in Hat
J as in John, Gem
K as in KinK
P as in PiP
S as in So
T as in ToT
V as in Victory
X as in SHoe
Z as in Zoo
The other 12 are considered vowels in Ceqli
Five Full Vowels:
A as in fAther
E as in bEt*
I as in machIne
O as in bOAt
U as in bOOt
And two semivowels:
W as in We, coW
Y as in You, boY
And five sounds, nasals and liquids, that are usually thought of
as consonants, but are considered vowels in Ceqli:
L as in LuLL
M as in MiM
N as in NooN
Q as in siNG
R as in RoaR (Midwestern American or Mandarin preferred, but any 'r' sound will do.)
N.B: *E is a short sound, as in English bEt, rEd, lEg. Remember to keep it short at the end of a word like "bine" or "twale". Do not pronounce it as in English "hooray". That sound is a diphthong and is indicated by "ey." The sound is common in English, but is seldom found as the last phoneme of a word.
A few of these are unconventional. This usage of C can be found befoe E or I in Italian. Q was chosen to represent the consonant in siNG because it had no other obvious use, and because the NG sound rarely has a symbol in any language. X is used this way in Pinyin, Portuguese, and Lingua Franca Nova.
W and Y make these diphthongs:
ay - as in frY
aw - as in cow
ey - as in bAthe
oy - as in bOY
ya - as in YArd
ye- as in YEllow
yo - as in YOre
yu - as in YOU
wa - as in WAter
we - as in WEt
wi - as in WE
When juxtaposed, full vowels are pronounced separately:
beo - BE-o
xua - XU-a
A Ceqli morpheme is always stressed on the first full vowel (AEIOU) in it.
full vowel:
piramun - PI-ra-mun
diyan - DI-yan
dilna - DIL-na
Finally, any diphthongs that you find difficult to pronounce may be pronounced as two separate vowels, u for w, and i for y, provided that the morpheme is stressed as though the two vowels are a diphthong!
Ceylo - CEY-lo or CE-i-lo, NOT Ce-I-lo
Triphthongs are possible though rare:
yay as in YIkes!
waw as in WOW!
wey as in WAY
yey as in YAY
yoy as in YOIks!
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