Vowels in Nova are affected by place of articulation, tone, and length. With only 5 positions of vowel articulation, a fair amount of variation in casual speech is allowed. [i] is centered around the vowel found in English 'beet' but can drop down to that found in 'bit'. [e] is closest to the vowel in 'bait' (without the palatal offglide) but can be heard like that in 'bet' or even occasionally 'bat'. [u] is ideally like the /oo/ in 'boot' but can be like /oo/ in 'book'. [o] is as in 'boat' (without the offglide) but can wobble towards 'bought'. [a] is like the /a/ in 'father' but shows some minor 'wobbling' of its own. The comments above are true for the long vowels as well.

Vowel length is phonemic in Nova and there is a very great difference between two syllables with differing vowel lengths that are otherwise identical. Compare pan, 'land, Pan (the home island) and pán, 'foreign, not of the tribe'.

Tone is inherent in Nowan vowels, not variable as in other languages. The highest vowels are the couplet [i, í], the lowest [a, á], descending in the order [i, e, u, o, a]. [u, ú] are roughly neutral. Tones tend to be somewhat relative. While there is an ideal, found in utterance initial forms, the mechanics of articulation mean that, e.g., an [a] containing syllable surrounded by [i] containing syllables, will be somewhat higher toned than it would be if utterance initial.

Consonants
Nova has 38 stops and fricatives as well as 2 liquids, 2 rhotics, [lh,l,r,rh] and 4 semivowels [h,w,y,'], The 38 stops and fricatives are distributed across 6 points of articulation (labial, labiodental, interdental (or dental, it varies from dialect to dialect), alveolar, velar and uvular) and each point has at least 6 different manners of articulation; voiceless stop (VL), glottalized voiceless stop (VLGL), voiced stop (VD), voiced nasal (N), voiceless fricative (FVL) and voiced fricative (FVD). The alveolar point has an additional voiceless (F2VL)-voiced (F2VD) fricative pair.

Labials are those consonants produced with the lips. Of these, [b] and [m] are similar to the English equivalents. [p] is similar to English 'spot' but not 'pot', i.e., it is not aspirated. [p'] is a glottalized [p], pronounced with a simultaneous glottal stop. [ph] and [bh] are the voiceless and voiced fricatives respectively. They are not /f/ or /v/. Rather form the lips for [p] and [b], then open slightly to release air through them.

Labiodentals are mostly unfamiliar. The fricatives, [f] and [v] are fairly common around the world and are almost the same as their English equivalents. To form the others, purse the lips as though for a labial but position the tip of the tongue behind the upper teeth. The resulting consonants, [pt], [bd], and [mn] are roughly the same as a simultaneous /p/ and /t/, simultaneous /b/ and /d/, and simultaneous /m/ and /n/ respectively. [pt'] is the glottalized equivalent to [pt].

(Inter)Dentals are formed in two different ways. The prestige dialect, spoken in the Great Central Valley and along the Western and Southern Coasts, pronounce these as interdentals, with the tongue tip resting between the slightly parted teeth and lips spread. The more rural dialects tend to pronounce these with the tip of the tongue behind the upper front teeth. To listeners not used to 2 differing sets of /t, d, n/ like consonants, they can be very confusing. Note that [ñ] is not the same as Spanish /ñ/. [th] and [dh] are equivalent to English /th/ in 'thin' and 'then' respectively.

Alveolars are the second set of /t, d, n/ like consonants and are very similar to their English equivalents. The tongue tip is turned up more than in English which emphasizes their differences from the interdental set and they are not aspirated. Note that their are two sets of fricatives here with values equivalent to their English counterparts. [zh] is the least familiar but is found as the /z/ in 'azure' or in French /j/.

Velars are similar to English counterparts but slightly more fronted. [k] is more like the /c/ in 'cool' than the /c/ in 'calm' although without the aspiration. [g] is the voiced equivalent and [ng] is the nasal, which in English, only occurs syllable final. [x] is not found in English but is like Russian /kh/. [gh] is the voiced equivalent.

Uvulars are not found in English or most European languages, they are in fact fairly rare around the world. [q] is somewhat like a [k], pronounced very far back in the throat. It is not a /kw/ sound as in English 'quick'. [c] is the voiced equivalent, [nq] is the nasal. The two fricatives are [xh] and [ch] which are almost like gargling noises. [ch] is not the same as English /ch/ in 'chair'.

Liquids and rhotics occur in two basic forms each. [l] is an alveolar although not so far back as the alveolar series above. [lh] is pronounced with more breath, less voice and a slightly fronted tongue tip, almost but not quite touching the upper front teeth. [r] is pronounced from the alveolar series tongue position and is similar to English /r/. [rh] is somewhat fronted, much rougher and more breathy.

Semivowels are traditionally divided into two series as shown. All show some variation across dialects, but pronouncing the Series I set [h], [w], [y] as in English 'hat', 'with', and 'year' is good approximation. Learners should note that [h] is always voiceless in Nova, even if between 2 vowels. The sound represented by ['] is the glottal stop and occurs only syllable initial. This sound worries English speakers but shouldn't. We naturally pronounce one in front of vowel initial words anyway but are unconscious of it. Series II semivowels are somewhat more complex and comparatively rare. The first, [wh] occurs as an aspirated /w/ in many but not all English dialects. It roughly contrasts as in the English minimal pair [wyte] and [white]. The form [yh] is a very retroflex /y/ and is found in some Latin American dialect pronunciations of Spanish /j/. The sound represented by /j/ in Nova is a voiced [h]. It occurs in many languages /V_V. In Nova it often occurs utterance initial and listeners must listen closely.

Stress is not particularly important in Nova. Slight differences in the vocal tracts between Nowans and Humans give a different character to Nova speech. It has a very chant-like quality with stress, where it occurs, reflecting vowel length and tone, thus being more impressionistic than real. Each morpheme is pronounced very crisply, clearly, and forcefully with only a slight amount of stress being heard on the first morpheme of a root.

In its homeland, Nova is normally written in the Betascript Morphograph. To the eye, a page of Nova written in Betascript bears a certain resemblance to Chinese or perhaps Korean. Each of the more than 900 characters, or more properly, morphograms, fills an imaginary box and appears to be a discrete unit. To some extent this is true, each morphogram represents one morpheme and since morphemes are always monosyllabic in Nova, each morphogram also represents one syllable.
Looking more closely, each morphogram may be analyzed into 2-4 parts. The core of a morphogram is the stem, made up of parallel lines and curves. Each stem represents a point of articulation (except for the liquids and semivowels which are classes rather than points of articulation). Voiceless stops do not have a prefix which is a symbol attached to the left side of the stem and indicates the manner of articulation. All glottalized stops have the same prefix, all voiced stops have another and so forth. Vowels are represented by the suffixes which are attached to the right side of the stem. Again, each point of articulation has a seperate symbol for a total of 5. Long vowels are indicated by doubling the vowel suffix. Final consonants are indicated by affixes which consist of horizontal lines, or lines and loops, attached to the top, bottom, or both of the right side of the stem.
Although it will not be discussed here in any detail, Betascript also includes two different number systems and a system of musical notation. The script was traditionally written with a rabbit-hair brush. This practice appears to have entered Pan from China or Japan ca. 850 AD. Religious texts (and prior to the revolution, Royal documents), have the vowels written in red and rest of the morphogram in black.

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© 2001 Brad Coon

Revised August 29, 2001

URL:www.geocities.com/nowapan