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 called cwazim, or "leading letter" (C) 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 called falozim, or "following letters" (N) in Ceqli
Five vawl, or "vowels" (V):
A as in fAther
E as in bEt*
I as in machIne
O as in bOAt
U as in bOOt
And two poyfayvawl, "semivowels" (P):
W as in We, coW
Y as in You, boY
And three truyn, "nasals," (T)
M as in MiM
N as in NooN
Q as in siNG
And two hlar, "laterals"
L as in LuLL
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. The word deybe is pronounced like English "day bed" without the "d."
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, vawl are pronounced separately:
beo - BE-o
xua - XU-a
Stress: If a Ceqli morpheme of more than one syllable ends with a vawl (AEIOU) or poyfayvawl (WY), the stress falls on the next-to-last vawl:
dilna - DILna
pamo - PAmo
zilaw - ZIlaw
somalay - soMAlay
If such a morpheme has more than three syllables, a secondary stress falls on the fourth-to-last syllable.
tuyamalu - tuyaMAlu
kawelomani - kaweloMAni
If it does not end with a vawl or poyfayvawl, it is stressed on the last vawl:
diyan - diYAN
cawal - caWAL
femur - feMUR
felin - feLIN
And if such a morpheme has three or more syllables, a secondary stress falls on the third-from-last syllable:
piramun - piraMUN
starloremi - starloreMIN
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!
Ceqli morphemes must begin with one or more cwazim. But this is an actual language, so there are times when borrowed names do not. In this case, for the most part, we simply put an 'h' at the beginning if the name begins with a vowel or semivowel:
English > heqlizo (note: "zo" is suffixed to all proper names)
Al> halzo
Obama > hobamazo
This is also done with lmnqr:
Lima > hlimazo
Russia > hrusizo
Norman > hnormanzo
Now, in the latter cases, h can be pronounced as English h, as Russian x, or, it can devoice the following phoneme. That is, hl would be pronounced like Welsh ll, hr an unvoiced r, etc. I think the latter would be preferred, but because it's not that easy for everybody, the h or Russian x pronunciations are available.
The names of letters in Ceqli:
A hatsi
E hetsi
I hitsi
O hotsi
U hutsi
L haltsi
M hemtsi
N hintsi
Q hoqtsi
R hurtsi
W hawtsi
Y haytsi
Tsi is a suffix that means the whole compound is the name of a letter. All the falozim are named that way, and the names have very little use in Ceqli except to spell words.
One other point. The very names of the non-cwazim letters of course don't begin with cwazim. The names are:
All the cwazim, on the other hand, have names in the form of the letter itself followed by a schwa sound, preferably the English sound, but any schwa-like sound will do, as long as it doesn't sound like a vawl.
They are also used to spell words, of course, but they are also used as pronouns, or anaphora, to refer back to previously used words, in this way.
Janzo pa gi kom pan. J bu pa falfa P.
John was eating bread. He dropped it.
They replace da for clarity. To avoid confusion, they are always written upper-case followed by a space, of course.
They are also used for acronyms:
To hanho stani hu Hamerihaymzo. HSH Pronounced huh-suh-huh
The United States of America. (USA)
Janzo Fitsjeraldzo Kenedizo. JFK Pronounced juh-fuh-kuh
And for foreign abbreviations, of course the falozim have to be used, too.
USA pronounced hutsi-suh-hatsi
And to name the chemical elements, both the cwazim and falozim forms have to be used, of course:
Fe pronounced fuh-hetsi, Ag pronounced hatsi-guh, etc.
In mathematical expression, lower-case letter symbols are pronounced the same way:
a+b=c hatsi plui buh kwal chuh
Finally, for situations where extreme clarity is called for, the military, or NATO, "phonetic" alphabet is used as is.
ICAO Phonetic Alphabet
Letter | Code Word | Pronunciation |
---|
A |
Alfa |
AL fah |
B |
Bravo |
BRAH voh |
C |
Charlie |
CHAR lee |
D |
Delta |
DEL tah |
E |
Echo |
EKK oh |
F |
Foxtrot |
FOKS trot |
G |
Golf |
Golf |
H |
Hotel |
HO tell |
I |
India |
IN dee ah |
J |
Juliet |
JEW lee ett |
K |
Kilo |
KEY loh |
L |
Lima |
LEE mah |
M |
Mike |
Mike |
N |
November |
NOH vem ber |
O |
Oscar |
OSS car |
P |
Papa |
PAH pah |
Q |
Quebec |
keh BECK |
R |
Romeo |
ROW me oh |
S |
Sierra |
see AIR ah |
T |
Tango |
TANG go |
U |
Uniform |
YOU nee form |
V |
Victor |
VIK ter |
W |
Whiskey |
WISS key |
X |
X-ray |
EKS ray |
Y |
Yankee |
YANG kee |
Z |
Zulu |
ZOO loo |
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