PRONUNCIATION OF TCEQLI
First, an orthography note. Tceqli can be written in all lower-case letters or all upper-case letters. When writing about Tceqli in English, I use conventional English style capitalization, hence "Tceqli" 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 Tceqli language uses the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet. 13 of them are called cwazim, or "leading letter" (C) in Tceqli:
B as in Boy
C as in SHin
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
Z as in Zoo
X is a special letter used only to form foreign sounds. For example, the English "th" sound in "thin" would be represented in Tceqli by "tx."
The other 12 are called falozim, or "following letters" (N) in Tceqli
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 Tceqli 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!
Tceqli 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 > heqlit (See Lesson 3 for an explanation of the final -t and the stress)
Al> halt
Obama > hobamat
Names beginning with with lmnqr add zr:
Lima > zlimat
Russia >zrusit
Norman > znormant
The names of letters in Tceqli:
A at
E et
I it
O ot
U ut
L let
M met
N net
Q qet
R ret
W wet
Y yet
B bet
C cet
D det
F fet
G get
H het
J jet
K ket
P pet
T tet
V vet
X xet
Z zet
Note that the falozim group of letters are in violation of the rule that morphemes must begin with a cwazim. Consequently, they must be preceded by a pause or glottal stop.
All the cwazim, on the other hand, have names in the form of the letter itself followed by et, so no pause is required, though it's usually there anyway.
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. (Prounounced Jet be pa falfa pet.)
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 het-set-het
The United States of America. (USA)
Janzo Fitsjeraldzo Kenedizo. JFK Pronounced jet-fet-ket
And for foreign abbreviations, of course the falozim have to be used, too.
USA pronounced ut-set-at
And to name the chemical elements, both the cwazim and falozim forms have to be used, of course:
Fe pronounced fet-et, Ag pronounced at-get, etc.
In mathematical expression, lower-case letter symbols are pronounced the same way:
a+b=c at plu bet kwal cet
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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