Umod Phonology

Umod Vowels

Umod has the following vowels (shown with their transliterated value, approximate American English sound, and X-SAMPA pronunciations):

Transcription	Pronunciation	X-SAMPA
ae*	bad cat	[{]
e	red bed	[E]
y	sit pit	[I]
o	hot pot	[O]
u	boot	[u]
a	about	[@]
ei**	say bay	[e]
i	see key	[i]
oe*	toe hoe	[o]
ai**	eye	[@i]

* ae and oe are NOT diphthongs. These are represented by one letter in Umod (as opposed to ai and ei). Another way of representing ae and oe are with the ligatures � and �) ** = Diphthongs

Umod Consonants

Umod has 23 consonants. You will notice that several are transcribed using two letters (dh, th, etc.). These are represented by one letter in the Umod script (which will be discussed later). The 24 consonants are:

Transcription	Pronunciation	X-SAMPA
b	book	[b]
d	diligent	[d]
f	finger	[f]
g	gorilla	[g]
h	handle	[h]
k	king	[k]
l	lovely	[l]
m	magnificent	[m]
n	novice	[n]
p	pensive	[p]
**r	Rob Roy (rolled)	[r]
s	sink	[s]
t	tango	[t]
*v	approx. "victory" (bilabial fricative)	[B]
w	west	[w]
z	zebra	[z]
sh	ship	[S]
kh	Scots "loch"	[x]
th	thin	[T]
dh	th in "then"	[D]
**+r	Am. Eng. "red"	[r\]
gh	voiced "kh"	[G]
zh	azure	[Z]
ng	sing, but also initial	[N]

(*v = v in Umod is a bilabial fricative (pronounced with both lips as opposed to the lip-bottom teeth pronunciation in English. A "labiodental" v is a good approximate of the sound for speakers of English learning Umod.)
(**-r = when +r follows a stop (kr, gr, br, pr, etc.), it turns into an alveolar approximate. When r stands alone, it is rolled/trilled. These are actually signified by using two separate letters in Umod orthography.

Idiosyncrasies of Pronunciation

I. The first oddity of pronuciation of Umod involves the liquids (i.e., l & r). When these two are followed by a nasal (m, n), a short "uh" sound [@] or schwa is added between the two. The nasal is still considered part of the same syllable (i.e., olm is a one-syllable word). For example:
The verb olm is pronounced [ol@m]. However, when the -an nominalizer is added, for example, to the "god" Olmanum's name, the -m- falls into another syllable and is pronounced with that new syllable [ol.'m{n.um].

II. When a consonant is followed by a liquid (l, r), the liquid turns into a syllabic consonant (i.e., the l or r is pronounced as its own syllable.). For example:
The verb krysl is pronounced [kr\Is.l] rhymes with the English word "gristle." However, when the nominalizer -an is added in "Kryslan," the -l- falls into the final syllable ['kr\Is.l{n]. This follows for several other affixes as well.

Back to Umod Home Page

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws