Consonants
| Bilabial | Labio-Dental | Coronal | Dorsal | Laryngeal |
---|
Nasal | m | | n |
Plosive | b | | | k |
Fricative | | f | s | | ? |
Approximant | | | l , r\ | | h |
Orthography | Sound |
---|
m | /m/ meet |
n | /n/ near |
b | /b/ bit |
k | /k/ neck |
f | /f/ fill |
s | /s/ sat |
l | /l/ last |
r | /r\/ red |
Consonants can be long or short. Long consonants are represented in the orthography by doubled letters.
The /h/ sound is not written and its exact pronunciation can change based on nearby sounds, for instance sometimes it is realized as a glottal stop /?/. This is called the “ghost”.
Vowels
| Front | Sequence | Back |
---|
Close | | | u |
Near-Close | I | oU , ioU |
Close-Mid | Ei | EioU |
Open-Mid | E |
Open | a | iA | A |
Orthography | Sound |
---|
e <always part of a digraph> | /i/ meet |
u | /u/ boot |
i | /I/ bit |
o | /oU/ no “oh” |
eo | /ioU/ Leo “yo” |
a <always part of a digraph> | /Ei/ day “ay” |
ao | /EioU/ Laos “ayoh” |
e | /E/ men |
a | /a/ hat |
ia <or “ea” in some words> | /iA/ Mia “ya” |
ah <digraph> | /A/ father |
The vowel sequences are often found together and represented in the orthography by monographs or digraphs. The examples given aren’t exact, but are given to provide guidance, with some practice the necessary diphthongs and sequences can be produced.