Pronunciation Guide for Those Who Don’t Know What a Phonology Is
In this section, I’ll assume my reader is an English speaker who knows nothing about linguistics. If you do know about linguistics – if you know what a phonology is, what the word romanization means, what the IPA is all about – then please feel free to skip this section and go straight to the phonology.
This is a guide to how to pronounce Lasat as it is written in the italics. The way that I’ve spelled Lasat is largely similar to English, though there are a few differences.
To start with, here are all the consonants that have only one pronunciation that is unchanged from English:
m as in man
n as in never
p as in parent
b as in big
k as in king
f as in feel
v as in very
z as in Zeb
j as in juice
l as in lime
r as in read
y as in yellow
Next, here’s the consonants and combinations that may need more clarification:
t is pronounced as in tank unless followed by h.
The combination th is pronounced with a “soft th” as in think.
t is also sometimes followed by an s, even at the beginning of words – in English, the combination ts at the beginning of words will usually be pronounced as just an s, such as in the word tsunami, but in Lasat both the t and the s should be pronounced.
d is pronounced as in dark unless followed by h.
The combination dh becomes a “hard th” as in that or them.
d is also sometimes followed by a z; both the d and the z should be pronounced.
g as in good. In English, there is the concept of a “hard g” versus a “soft g”. This does not exist in Lasat; there is only the “hard g”. A word like geshar, “to eat”, would still be pronounced with the hard g as in get.
‘ as in uh-oh: The apostrophe represents what we in the biz refer to as a glottal stop. When you pronounce “uh-oh”, you will find that your throat closes briefly between the “uh” and the “oh”. That noise – or, rather, non-noise – is treated as a consonant in some Lasat syllables.
s is pronounces as in sun unless followed by h.
The combination sh is pronounced as in shoot.
The combination ch is pronounced as in charge. The letter c is not used otherwise in Lasat.
There is a difference between r and rr. As I mentioned above, r should be pronounced as in rain; rr, on the other hand, is a “rolled r”. It’s difficult to describe it using only English words; if you are familiar with Spanish, it is a similar rr as in perro.
Finally, let’s cover the vowels. Lasat has short vowels and long vowels – the easy way to pronounce these is when you see the long vowel version, just hold it for an extra beat compared to the short vowel.
i rhymes with tee. For that reason, the long version is spelt ee. You may also see this long vowel spelled with a y in words that I have inherited from Anath_Tsurugi and others.
e is as in bed. The long version is spelt eh.
a is as in llama. The long version is spelt ah.
o is as in pore. The long vowel is spelt aw.
u rhymes with stool. For that reason, the long version is spelt oo.
There are three vowel combinations that become a new vowel sound (what we in the biz call diphthongs). These are:
ai rhymes with pie; ei rhymes with way; au rhymes with cow.
For any other combination of vowels, pronounce them separately. For example: as you likely know, Zeb’s last name Orrelios is pronounced “o-rre-li-os”.
Now you have all the tools you need to know how to pronounce any given Lasat text. You’re most welcome to refer back to this section at any point if you need to. The following section will be aimed at people with more of a familiarity with linguistics, so it’s up to you whether you read it.
IPA Chart(s) For Those Who Do
I am aware that this chart doesn’t match completely with the way I described the pronunciation above, and may not match perfectly with how I transcribe the language later on. Firstly, I wanted to make the pronunciation guide as clear as possible. Secondly, I don’t always remember to put, for example, /t͡s/ instead of /ts/. I’ve done my best but occasionally there will be mistakes! Thirdly, particularly with the vowels, I've accepted that there will be a fair bit of variation when pronouncing them, especially with accent differences in English, and that's okay. This is a broad transcription intended as a general guide.
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Consonants |
Bilabial |
Labio- |
Dental |
Alveolar |
Post- |
Velar |
Glottal |
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Nasal |
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m /m/ |
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n /n/ |
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Plosive |
p /p/ |
b /b/ |
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t /t/ |
d /d/ |
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k /k/ |
g /g/ |
‘ /ʔ/ |
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Fricative |
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f /f/ |
v /v/ |
th /θ/ |
dh /ð/ |
s /s/ |
z /z/ |
sh /ʃ/ |
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Affricate |
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ts /t͡s/ |
dz /d͡z/ |
ch /t͡ʃ/ |
j /d͡ʒ/ |
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Lateral approximant |
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l /l/ |
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Approximant |
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r /ɹ/ |
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Palatal: y /j/ |
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Trill |
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rr /r/ |
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The vowels, particularly the romanization of the long vowels, are… not how I would have done it if I were coming up with a language like this from scratch, thanks to the spelling that canon uses (more on that later), but this is what I ended up with:
|
Vowels |
Front |
Back |
|
Close |
i /i/ ee or y1 /i:/ |
u /u/ oo /u:/ |
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Close-mid |
e /e/2 eh/e:/ |
o /o/3 oh /o:/ |
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Open |
a /a/ ah /a:/ |
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The diphthongs are ai /ai/, ei /ei/, and au /au/.
1 Ananth_Tsurugi’s Lasana uses y – the most notable example I can think of is in the word alkyrreh, which they seem to translate as “(have) mercy”. However, as I have not yet found a pronunciation guide or IPA for Lasana, I have no way of knowing whether this is meant to be pronounced as an actual /y/, /i/, /ɪ/, or even somehow /j/. They seem to use i and ee more or less interchangeably, which only makes the addition of y more confusing.
If you know anything about this, I’d love to hear it! I have borrowed the word alkyrreh, so I’d love to know what the original intent for the word was. For Lasat, I have gone with the pronunciation /al.ki:.re:/, and treated any similar words I borrowed from Lasana the same.
Otherwise, as I struggle to pronounce /y/ correctly, I have not included it in Lasat.
The syllable structure is: (C)(C)V(C)(C).
Stress is on the leftmost heavy syllable of the word, or if the syllable weights are equal it falls on the first syllable. Weight is determined based on whether a syllable contains a long vowel, a coda consonant, a coda cluster, or some combination of the above. Ignoring onsets, the below is a weight scale to determine which syllables are heavier than others – heaviest at the top, lightest at the bottom.
VVCC VVC
VV
VCC VC
V
Stress does not change with the addition of affixes (see grammar section for more information).
