Temanean Language

Phonology

Consonants

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Alveolar	Palato-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops	p / b		t / d			g
Affricatives				ch / jh
Fricatives		v*	s	x / j			h
Approximants			r		yy
Nasals	m		n			ng
Lateral Approximants			l

Unvoiced sounds are on the left of the "/", while voiced sounds are on the right.

• The palato-alveolar affricative "jh" is pronounced as the "j" in jog or jab.
• The palato-alveolar fricatve "x" is pronounced as the "sh" in shy or show.
• The palato-alveolar fricative "j" is pronounced as the "s" in vision or delusion.
• The alveolar approximant "r" is never trilled, but is usually tapped behind the teeth.
• The palatal approximant "yy" is pronounced as the "y" in yes or yellow.

Exceptions

• * The labio-dental fricative "v" is used primarily by people from the island kingdoms. Mainland speakers might substitute this sound with a "b".

Vowels

	Front	Middle	Back
High	y
Mid-High	i	uo	u
Mid	e	eu
Mid-Low	ae	o
Low		a

• The high front vowel sound "y" is pronounced as the "ee" in feet or reed.

• The mid-high front vowel sound "i" is pronounced as the "i" in pit and fit.
• The mid-high middle vowel sound "uo" is pronounced as the "e" in bucket or "i" in margin.
• The mid-high back sound "u" is pronounced as the "u" in put and the "oo" in wood.

• The middle front sound "e" is pronounced as the "e" in pet or get.
• The middle vowel sound "eu" is pronounced as the "u" in furl or hurt.

• The mid-low front vowel sound "ae" is pronounced as the "a" in bat or rag.
• The mid-low back sound "o" is pronounced as the "o" in pot or wrong.

• The middle low sound "a" is pronounced as the "u" in but or the "a" in far.

Diphthongs & Triphthongs

Common diphthongs include:

• ea, pronounced "eh-ah" or "eya", like the vowel sounds in bet and bath. Normally a suffix reserved for countries.
• ai, pronounced "ah-i", like the vowel sounds in bath and bit.
• ua, pronounced "wa", like the vowel sound in won.
• uy, pronounced "we", like the word we.
• ui, pronounced "oo-i" or "oowi", like above but with a short ending, like the vowel sound in quick.
• ya, pronounced "ia" or "iya", like the vowel sounds in bit and bath.

Temanean has no triphthongs, but has syllables that might get mistaken for one:

• iao; the "ao" is treated as its own syllable and pronounced with a "h" at the start, like "hao", or "ihao" all up.
• oea; the "ea" is treated as its own syllable as above, and pronounced with a "h" at the start, like "hea", or "ohea" all up.

Syllable Structure

• Temanean syllables always have a consonant onset (first sound), a vowel nucleus (middle sound), and sometimes have a consonant coda (end sound).
• Syllables beginning with "a", "e", or "yy", actually begin with an "h" sound as the onset, and the visible vowel becomes the nucleus of the syllable.
• Consonant codas can only be "n", "ng", or sometimes "r" or "l". If it's a vowel, it's usually "a" or "i".

Exceptions

• Some syllables that these rules still exist but are considered outdated, such as "esn" from the So Esn Kingdom, where the coda is made of two consonant sounds. The word "esn" is pronounced as "hesn", and words like this only survives due to their historic significance.

Stress

Only on the first syllable, or the second syllable of a three-syllable word.