Sidhaisin:

Phonetics and Pronunciation

Pronunciation Key

Vowels

A -- Always short. Takes the sound of "o" in "pot" as the final phoneme, or when followed by L or S; all other times it is pronounced as in "pad".
E -- As in "fed". Always pronounced when at the end of a word.
I -- Long E, as in "free", except when followed by a dipthong, digraph or the letter N, in which case it takes the sound of I in "in".
O -- Always long, as in "hoe".
U -- Long U sound, as in "food".
Y -- A sort of intermediate sound between long and short I, tending towards the short.
AE -- Long A, as in "day".
AH -- The same sound as in English, a more drawn-out short A.
AI -- Long I, as in "aisle".
AU -- Pronounced as "ow", like in "how".
IE -- Each vowel is pronounced separately: "ee-eh".
IH -- Short I, as in "it". Farely rare.
UA -- Not quite a vowel. The U usually blends in with the preceeding consonant to make a dipthong-like W with an abbreviated schwa. Example: duane "friend" is pronounced "d'wanneh".
YA -- Pronounced "eeyah".

Doubled vowels, such as in higetraa "abjuration", are held for double the duration of the single vowel.

Consonants

All consonants are pronounced as they are in English, with the following exceptions:

There are no C, X or Z in Sidhaisin.

DH -- Voiceless TH, as in "with".
G -- Only hard G, as in "get".
NY -- The Spanish ñ, as in piñata.
R -- Pronounced similar to the German in the back of the throat, semi-trilled but short.
TH -- Voiced TH, as in "that".

Doubled consonants are completely pronounced and not slurred over: the ss in leyantessi "to know" is pronounced as in "gasstove" rather than as in "glassy".

Elisions

In a tongue like Sidhaisin there are many opportunities for words ending in vowels to abut words starting with vowels. In such cases, it is common in speech to smooth over the often jolting opposition of the vowels by contracting the two words together. Recently, it has been noted that contractions in the written forms are beginning to appear, but the only such contractin that is "approved" by Sidhaisin grammarians is the prepositional contraction (described below).

The following are the rules for all elisions:

When two identical vowels abut, drop the first: eho othal becomes eh'othal "four women". Exception: when one of the vowels is the definite article o, drop the other.

When a pronoun/noun and a verb abut vowel-to-vowel, always contract the pronoun/noun against the verb: se aila becomes s'aila "I am".

When a vowel combination is involved, contract in favor of the combination: lasho aurafel becomes lash'aurafel "eleven arrows".

Do not contract verb endings unless the verb's tense is explicitly clear from context.

When in doubt about when to contract, sound it out. If a complete stop is required in order to end one word and begin the next, contract it. Contraction serves to smooth the sound of the language, making it more fluid to the ear; if you are uncertain about whether to contract or not, ask yourself which way it sounds better, which way it's easier to say.

Consult the table below when the rules above do not apply when determining which vowel to drop. When two vowels to be contracted together adjoin, drop the one rightmost on the table.

Vowel Priority Table

Highest -> A E O U I <- Lowest

Prepositional Contractions: An exception to the optional nature of such elisions is the case of a preposition ending in a vowel adjacent to a word that begins with a vowel. In such a case, the preposition always loses the final vowel and is contracted against the following word.


This page was created on November 7, 1997.
Last modified March 12, 2011.