Post by Hooligan on Jul 21, 2013 17:10:46 GMT -6
LECTURE 2: TALOSSAN PRONUNCIATION
PART 3: ODDITIES
IN SHORT AND DETAIL, WITH AS MUCH OF EACH AS POSSIBLE
I didn't do a very good job keeping it short in part 2, did I? So there's really not much chance you'll believe my promise to do better this time, is there? Oh well. The good thing is this is the last of the three parts of "Lecture 2". Next week, we'll get into the actual words being formed by all these letters we've been talking about.
The topic for this final part is the things you will come across that don't fit into the nice neat rules that parts 1 and 2 of the lecture laid out for you. The bad thing is you will just have to kind of get to know these things and memorise them. The good thing is that there are far far fewer of them than there are in English (which has weird things like silent-E and what that does to the vowel in a word, and other silent letters, like the b in lamb and the k in knee, and things like the o that doesn't do anything in people, etc., etc.
Words (and Parts of Words)
that Break the Pronunciation Rules
Irregularly Pronounced Word-Endings
- The Talossan ending -ind (seen in "traditional style" writing as -înd) is like English's -ing (as in singing, walking). The fancy technical name for this type of word is a "present participle". ("Sing" is the verb and "singing" is its present participle.) This ending is pronounced as if it were spelled -ant (that is, Talossan present participles rhyme with the English words daunt and haunt and font). This irregular pronunciation is also used if the word is suffixed again, as in surpriçindamint (which means "surprisingly"). In case you care, the reason for this odd pronunciation is because the ending once was spelled to end with -ant by some Talossans, but as -înd (and pronounced as it was spelled) by others. To resolve the difference, the two groups agreed to compromise by both accepting one of the two spellings but the other one's pronunciation. Which just goes to you how screwed up people can make things when they work together.
- Words that end in -eu or -éu are pluralized by adding an x to them. But this x isn't pronounced like an x in this situation, it's pronounced like English "sh" as in ash and ship. For example, bildeu means "picture" and bildeux means "pictures", and the end of this second word is the English "sh" sound.
- The word-ending -schti ends with a silent i. This ending is another plural ending, in this case for words that (in their singular) end in -escu. Words like menxhescu (which means "eaten"), which has the plural form menxheschti. English speakers may be scratching their head now wondering what I mean by saying that a word like "eaten" has a plural form. Well, consider the two phrases The pie was eaten and The pies were eaten; in Talossan, the first of these (talking about a single pie) would use menxhescu and the second one (talking about multiple pies) would use menxheschti.
- The word-ending -einçe ends with a silent e. This is the numerical ending indicating multiples of ten; for example, simeinçe means "fifty" and treinçe means "thirty".
- The suffix -ziun (similar to the "-tion" ending in English), as seen in the word naziun (= nation) has the irregularities that the z is pronounced as "ts", and the n (if at the word-ending, but not when the word is further suffixed, as in naziunal) is not distinctly pronounced, but rather it "nasalises" the u.
- The letter s in the word-ending -sour (seen as -soûr in traditional style writing) is pronounced as if it were a z. (If you remember, this was mentioned in part 2 of this seemingly never-ending lecture.)
There are really only about a dozen words in Talossan that are not pronounced as they're spelled (according to the rules in part 1 and part 2 and of course the stuff in this part). I will only bother to go through the extremely common ones.
- He, Him, His, Her, Hers, They, Them, and Everybody's Selves
- The word o (meaning "he") is pronounced as if it were spelled (in Talossan) u. That is, it's pronounced like English "oo" as in ooze. So the first word in the sentence O tent vuit fratreux ("he has eight brothers") is pronounced like English "oo". (Notice that the word oh is pronounced just as it would be English, though; the silent-h being the reason.)
- The word os (meaning "they")...which you might notice looks like the plural of the word for "he"...is pronounced like English would pronounce "oosh". That's right, both of the letters of this two-letter word are pronounced irregularly.
However, just like English has some cases where two different words are spelled the same but pronounced differently — like in the English sentence I will lead you to the lead mine — there is another Talossan word os, pronounced normally (like the end of the English word verbose); this other word os is the word for "bone". The sentence Os mirent àl os (which means "they looked at the bone") has both of these words in it.
- Like the word o (meaning "he"), listed above, the word lo (which means "him") is pronounced with that same English sound "oo" for the o. So Talossan lo is pronounced like the English word loo.
- The word lhor (= them), which is seen in prepositional phrases after prepositions ending with a vowel (such as in à lhor, meaning "to them") is pronounced as if it were spelled lor; that is, with the l (since it occurs between two vowels at a word boundary) pronounced as ð, as the "th" sound in English "this". [More discussion of the word lhor, and how it came to have this spelling, is found in the later portion of this lecture.]
- The word sieu (meaning "his" or "her", as in "this is his book") is pronounced like the English word shoo.
- The word síeu (which, unlike the word just described above, has an accent on the letter i) and its plural form síeux (these words mean "his" or "hers" as in "the book is his" and "the car is hers") are pronounced with the English "oo" sound again, but in this case without the changing of s to an "sh" sound. So síeu is pronounced like English "SEE-oo" (and síeux like English "SEE-oosh").
- The word so (which is the "reflexive object pronoun", which an English speaker can think of as being "himself", "herself", "itself", "themselves", "ourselves", etc.) is pronounced like the English word sue. For example, o en zoneva à so means "he gave it to himself".
- The word o (meaning "he") is pronounced as if it were spelled (in Talossan) u. That is, it's pronounced like English "oo" as in ooze. So the first word in the sentence O tent vuit fratreux ("he has eight brothers") is pronounced like English "oo". (Notice that the word oh is pronounced just as it would be English, though; the silent-h being the reason.)
- Numbers
- The q in the word qátor (which is the number "four") is pronounced like the English letter k. This is also how the q is pronounced in qareinçe (= forty).
- The i in the word simca (the number five) is pronounced as if it were the Talossan letter ü. This is also how the i is pronounced in =simeinçe (= fifty).
- The ei in the word séifet (the number seven) is pronounced as if it were the Talossan letters ái. This is also how that part of the word is pronounced in other words built from "seven", like seiftéu (meaning "seventh") and seifeinçe (= seventy).
- The q in the word qátor (which is the number "four") is pronounced like the English letter k. This is also how the q is pronounced in qareinçe (= forty).
- Other Words
- The word morgun (which means "morning") is pronounced as if it were spelled moren.
- The word acestilor (meaning "these" or "those") is pronounced as if it were spelled acésceler, which, in English, would be almost like "uh-CHASE-chuh-ler".
- The word cioveci (meaning "men", the irregularly-formed plural of the word cióvec, which means "man") is pronounced as if it were spelled cioveitsch; basically, remember that the final letter is silent.
- The h in the word hi (meaning "there", as in "there was" or "there were") is silent, so this word is pronounced exactly like the English name of the letter E.
- The phrase da c'horsica (meaning "of course") has a silent i and a final a. That is, it is pronounced as if spelled da c'horsc.
- The word morgun (which means "morning") is pronounced as if it were spelled moren.
As I say, there are a couple other irregularly pronounced words, but really and honestly only a couple. I mean it. There are honestly only two or three more, and none of them are as commonly seen as the ones above.
The More "Abnormal" Consonant Combinations
(or, to be more professorial, the Consonant Mutations)
If you remember, in Part 2 of this lecture that is scaring off the students left and right, I told you that there were two kinds of "consonant combinations" and then I only told you all about the first ("normal") kind. Well, it's time to tackle the others.
The first thing to know about these is that they only occur at the very beginning of a word (and there's a reason for this, as we'll get to in a minute)....mostly. I'm sorry to say that there are a few words where you'll see them in the middle of a word, but that is only because those words were formed from two other words being crammed together to make a single word. For example, remember I hinted that mh was one of these "abnormal" combinations? Well, you do find it in the middle of the word salamhenxh (which means "dining hall") but that's only because this word was likely formed from the cramming-together and shortening of the words sala (= hall) and menxha (= eating), or the phrase sala da menxha (= hall of eating).
Wait, wait, wait! you cry. If sala+menxha formed salamhenxh, where did that h come from after the m?! Well, I'll tell you.
You see, when someone is actually speaking Talossan, the consonant at the beginning of certain words often sounds differently than you'd think it would...if and only if the previous word ended with either a vowel or the letter n or r. Why is this? Who knows, but it happens in other languages too (notably Irish, and as we know, Talossan picked up a lot of Celtic language features in its mythical travel from North Africa to Milwau...er, Talossa).
Let's take my surname, which is La Mha. That means "the hand" (my non-Talossan surname is "Hand"). The Talossan word for "hand", if you look it up in the dictionary, is ma, not mha. If you try to look up the word mha, you won't find it (at least not alone). It's not a word in and of itself, so you won't find it in the dictionary. You see, mha is simply a way to spell the word ma that indicates the "changed" pronunciation of m that happens when the word comes right after a vowel (as it does, of course, in la mha).
At this point you have every right to be really scared, thinking that you might see lots of "extra h's" all the heck over the place in writing. You mean to say, you exclaim, that every single time a word that begins with a consonant comes after a word that ends in a vowel (or r or n), that consonant is going to be said...and spelled...differently?!?
Yes and no, but mostly no. In earlier Talossan, for a long while, consonant mutation occurred much more frequently than it does today, and it was recommended that spelling would always indicate this. So in older texts, mutation is seen written much more often than it is in modern text. Whether this indicates that the pronunciation of those consonants has now become "regular" (that is, unmutated) or simply that the mutation may still be heard in speech but is no longer indicated in writing (except in certain cases) is a topic of debate. Regardless, it is agreed that the only times when consonant mutation is still seen actually written is when the word that ends with a vowel (or n or r) is a preposition (like English "with", "because", "for", "to", etc.) or the words la (meaning "the") and iensa (meaning "a" or "an").
Now you're perhaps a bit less scared, and you're about to get even less scared still. Because it's also the case that in modern writing, most people only indicate mutation if the mutating word is a pronoun (a word like the English words "me", "you", "him", "her", "us" or "them") and don't indicate it otherwise (and whether it even occurs in speech unless the mutating word is a pronoun is also often debated). For example, everyone agrees you must write à mhe (which means "to me") and you must not write à me. But it's more than fine to write à María (= to Mary) instead of à Mharía, even if (as some contend) you may indeed hear the m sound change if someone were reading "à María" out loud.
Yes, I know that ma (= hand) is not a pronoun, and people still write la mha and not la ma. That word is one of the couple of exceptions that people have hung on to, and since it's my last name and I love consonant mutation, everyone pretty much has to hang on to that one anyway, if they weren't already. There are a couple other non-pronouns (all of them very short words like ma) that people seem to like writing the mutation for, but it's not required like it is for pronouns. For example, it's still common to see the mutation of D written in the word Díeu, which means God, so you often see à Dhíeu for "to God"...this despite the fact that the regular pronunciation rule for d has developed over time to the point where that letter is already regularly pronounced as if it were dh — that is, as ð — in that (between two vowels) position!
But enough about when and why you might see "consonant mutation". Since it only happens at the beginning of a word, and since the consonant combinations are rather strange-looking, hopefully you can notice when it's being shown in writing. All that's left is to know what each of the combinations means for pronunciation. Let's get to that.
First of all, there are (sorry) two kinds of "consonant" mutation. One of them (the kind where an h pops up after the changing letter, as we see in m becoming mh) is called "lenition". The other one is called "eclipsis". In eclipsis, an h doesn't pop up after the changing letter; instead, a whole different consonant (which, to make it easy, is the sound you should say instead of the changing letter) pops up before it!
Second of all, mutation only happens to certain consonants. Words that start with a g, for example, are immune from mutation.
Third of all, which of the two "kinds" of mutation happens to a particular consonant depends on which consonant it is. Yeah, sorry. Here's the deal:
WORD-INITIAL CONSONANT | MUTATION WHEN FOLLOWING... | |
...A VOWEL | ...N or R | |
s | ECLIPSIS ts pronounced like t | LENITION sh pronounced like sch |
p | LENITION ph pronounced like f | LENITION ph pronounced like f (long long ago, eclipsis had occurred here, with bp pronounced like b) |
b c d f t | LENITION bh pronouced like v c'h pronounced like c'h dh pronounced like ð fh pronounced like h th pronounced like h | ECLIPSIS mb pronounced like m gc pronounced like g nd pronounced like n vf pronounced like v dt pronounced like d |
l m n v | LENITION lh pronounced like glh mh pronounced like v nh pronounced like gnh vh pronounced like w | NONE |
(all others) | NONE | NONE |
Don't get too re-scared yet. Some of these (like sh and mb and bp), you really truly never ever see in writing anymore anywhere (and some say they are also never heard in speech anymore). Ever. Because remember, you typically only see mutation reflected in writing in pronouns that follow a preposition. That is, in phrases like "to him", "with me", "for them", etc. And there aren't that many pronouns (the me, you, him, and her type of words).
And then hey, some of the pronouns (like üns, which means "us") start with a vowel, so you know they won't be mutating on you!
And then, of the other pronouns, none of them start with b or c or d or f or p, so now you're really getting off easy! Those letters are listed above because you might hear the mutation, and because you might still run into them in writing due to a couple little ma-like exception words. For example, it's typical to see the lenition indicated in the phrase à fhéu (meaning "afire", where the unmutated word...the one found in the dictionary...is féu, which is "fire").
NOTE: The following two paragraphs were updated from their original version, based on commentary made by Sir Cresti in a post below:
Finally, to make you as unafraid as I possibly can, I'll also note that irregular pronunciation "trumps" consonant mutation. This means that because most of the pronouns that start with an l and an s already have an irregular pronunciation, this overrides any tendency for their initial consonant to mutate in a prepositional phrase. For example, remember that the word lo (= him) is pronounced irregularly (like English "loo"); this fact means that its l will not mutate, but rather, it will be pronounced like ð (according to the regular rules for pronunciation of l when appearing between vowels at a word-boundary). So you will never see à lho (= to him). The pronoun lor, meaning "them", though, was, originally, not irregularly pronounced. As a result, its initial l did undergo mutation in prepositional phrases, and that mutation became reflected in spelling, giving phrases like à lhor (= to them). However, over time, as discussed above, lhor came to be pronounced irregularly, with the ð sound (essentially a "denial" or an "undoing" of the mutation that its spelling would call for). In fact, nowadays, this word is sometimes seen spelled as lor rather than lhor. What all this means is that, since the lh combination only appears in the acknowledged-irregularly-pronounced lhor, you never will actually probably never encounter an lh that you should pronounce as its mutated sound, glh.
Similarly, since the pronoun so has an irregular pronunciation (as the English word "sue"), its s also does not mutate; that is, there is no tendency for cün so (= with himself) to be written cün sho, or for à so (= to himself) to be pronounced (or written) as à tso. What this means is that the only remaining mutation of s that you will likely see in modern writing is in the possessive pronoun phrase la tsía (= his or hers), as in aceasta pluma isch la tsía (= that pen is his/hers).
Remember that (except for the few words like salamhenxh and Finphäts, which means Finland, etc.) these consonant mutation combinations only appear at the beginning of a word. So when you see ts in la tsía, yes, that's the eclipsis of the letter s, so the second word is pronounced "TEE-uh". But when you see ts in regipäts, or in latsch (which means "anchovy"), that is not eclipsis: pronounce both the t and the s in those words.
Sick of all this yet? Well, good timing. Because I think we're done.
Okay, let's see how many questions you have and how much more confused we can make you with the answers.