Xurnese Pronunciation

Posted by Xavier McShane on 14:50 2/2/02

In reply to: (none)

The Xurnese language looks very interesting. Could you please give us some hints about its pronounciation?

Sure! Here's the phonology:

	Consonants					Vowels
	labial	alveolar	palatal	velar		front	central	back
stops	p (b)	t d		k g		i		u
affricates		c (dz)	ch j	(x)		e		o
fricatives	v	s z	sh				a
nasals	m	n
laterals		l	r
semivowels	w		y

c represents [ts]; voiced [dz] may also be phonemic
ch sh j are as in English
x beginning a word is [z], elsewhere [ks]
b/v are allophones of a single phoneme, [v] intervocalicallay, [b] elsewhere
e o are closed (as in say, so) except in diphthongs, where they're open (set, caught).
Stress the final syllable if it ends in a consonant, otherwise in a vowel.

Thus: Cu peicurey jic otos shevarirp o zidzi "The editor is hated by his writers" is pronounced tsu pey-tsu-REY jits o-TOS she-va-RIRP o ZI-dzi.

(Note: There is a good deal of dialect variation; and of course ancient Axunashin had its own rules.)