Carichendan Pronunciation, Alphabet, and Transliteration System
Pronunciation
The Carichendan alphabet has 31 letters. For most of this website, I will be using a transliteration system. That is, I will write Carichendan using the Roman letters. Here is the alphabet in Roman letters. If you'd like to hear the alphabet recited, click here. Just be aware that I myself do not always pronounce everything perfectly. ;-) It would be helpful to look at the letters below as you hear it recited, so that you will understand the transliteration system. The guide below is a close approximation. Further down the page, I provide the sounds with their IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) symbols, as close as I could determine.
A as in father
B as in boy
Ch as in China
D as in dinner (but dental).
E as in bet
Eu The southern Carichendans pronounce this like the oo in look. The northern Carichendans pronounce it more like the e in the French word Je.
F as in father
G as in gather (never pronounced like j. The j-sound is represented by the letter j)
H as in house
I like the ee in feet
J as in jungle
K as in kite
Kh approximately as in German ich
L as in leaf
M as in mother
N as in Nancy
Ng as in ring, /ŋ/ See Note below*
O as in olé
P as in puppy (aspirated slightly before vowels)
R Like Spanish r. Sounds a bit like a very quick d.
S as in snake
Sh as in shadow
T as in eat (but dental)
Ts as in cats
Tth as in the t th in the phrase "at the store," but with slight aspiration
U as in rule (like Spanish u)
V as in violin
W as in window)
Y as in yellow
Z as in zebra
Zh like the g in beige or like the s in measure
(C in transliteration, the letter c is used in certain loanwords. It is pronounced as a K. An obvious example is Carichenda! It is pronounced as if it were spelled Karichenda. And in fact, in Carichendan's own writing system, it is spelled with the letter used to represent K. The reason Carichenda is spelled with a C rather than a K is because when the Europeans discovered the Carichendans, they spelled it with a C. Another example when a C is used in the transliteration system is the word America. It is not spelled Amerika, even though that is how it is pronounced.)
*Ng In the transliteration system, Ng is pronounced like the ng in ring when at the beginning of a word, at the end of a word, or when followed by a consonant. However, it is pronounced like the ng in bingo when surrounded by vowels. So, nga is pronounced /ŋ/ except when surrounded by vowels. So for example, nga (have) is pronounced like ŋa. That is, the ng in that word sounds like the ng in ring (the g is not heard). But the ng in the word chenga (song) is pronounced like the ng in bingo (the g is heard). In the Carichendan script, chenga is spelled ch - e - ng - g - a. If the added g were not there, it would sound like cheŋa.
* The only time the character ŋ is used in the transliteration system is when one desires the sound of the ng in ring when it is surrounded by vowels. An example is the word for ill, miŋa.
All of the above letters are represented by one letter in the Carichendan script. Carichendan also uses doubling and sometimes even tripling of letters to make consonant clusters. So for example, you'll see ksh, which is pronounced like the ksh in milkshake. The pronunciation of these consonant clusters is fairly self-explanatory, although some of them may seem unfamiliar to English speakers.
Vowel Combinations:
When vowels occur side-by-side, they are each pronounced separately, and do not form a new vowel sound. The only exceptions are "ai," "ei," and "eu." "Ai" is pronounced like eye. "Ei" is pronounced like the ay in say, and the pronunciation of "eu" is described above.
Other letters and symbols you will see in the transliteration are:
' This is used to indicate a glottal stop. It is basically a slight pause. English speakers use this to distinguish between things like "gray day" and "grade A." "Grade A" uses a glottal stop between grade and A.
á é í ó ú The accent mark on a vowel indicates that the word is accented on that syllable. Accent marks are not used unless the word is an exception to the regular accent rules.
ŋ Used to indicate that the "ng" sound does not contain a hard g with it, in the instance when the "ng" is surrounded by vowels.
Carichendan sounds as represented by the International Phonetic Alphabet
I am not an expert in the IPA, so this is the closest I could determine. Some people who listened to my recordings made various suggestions on some of the letters. This chart follows the northern Carichendan dialect.
Accents
Rules for Accentuation:
1. If a word ends in a vowel, it is accented on the 2nd to last syllable.
2. If a word ends in a consonant, it is accented on the last syllable.
3. If a word ends in the vowel combination -ai it is always accented on the last syllable, even though it ends in a vowel.
4. If a word ends in -eCeC (C stands for consonant), it is accented on the second to last syllable, even though it ends in a consonant. Examples are: deshen, deret, jeshem, shenet, alehen, koshineret. These are all accented on the 2nd to last syllable.
5. Certain suffixes will shift the accent of the word to the suffix, and others will not. These must be learned as one learns the various suffixes.
If a word goes against the above rules, an accent mark is supplied.
The common words ani (I) and alu (you) are both accented on the end. The accent mark often gets left off of these words, however, due to their common usage. I will try to use the accents on them when I remember on this site, to remind you that the accent is on the end.
The Carichendan
Script
Carichendan has its own script. It has been greatly influenced by the various writing systems of the world. This is to be expected, since the Carichendans are of mixed background, having integrated many elements from various cultures, including Africa, India, Europe, and the Middle East. It it written from left to right, just like English. There are no capital letters. The script I have worked out is not necessarily the final product. I have already changed one of the symbols (that for tth) since I took this picture. But this will give you an idea. I have not yet finished making a font for Carichendan, so I cannot provide a nice typed version of the Carichendan script yet. Until I am able to make the font, I am providing a scanned picture of the alphabet in my own handwriting. It shows the Roman characters and their Carichendan Equivalents. Click here to see!
