Introduction

Alphabet

Pairs have Naswiyan on the left, Common transcription on the right. Even though many of the consonants are written with 2 Common letters, they only represent a single Naswiyan consonant. Most letters are pronounced like in Common, but careful note should be made of c, the three with j, kh, q, gh, qh, and '.

The rows of consonants will be referred to by the letters in the column starting with t

Almost all consonants can appear doubled - the digraphs are written doubled by doubling the last letter only, so thh instead of thth, zjj instead of zjzj, and so on. Only ' and h cannot - in fact, those two can't appear next to any other consonant, or at the ends of words. For the consonants in the t and d rows, doubling is approximately like putting a ' before the single consonant, except for z, zh, zj, and gh. For those, and the consonants in the th, n, and l rows, doubling means holding the sound for longer than normal.

Vowels at the start of words are actually always pronounced with a consonant before them, and which consonant depends on what the previous word ends with. If it ends with any single consonant, that consonant is doubled. If a double consonant, the second consonant 'moves' from the word it's part of to before the vowel. If it ends with e or i, then a y is added. If an o or u, then w. If an a or there is no word, such as at the start of a sentence or after a pause, then '. This only affects words that are written as starting with a vowel - words beginning with "vocalising" clusters (a consonant from the n or l rows followed by a consonant from the same row or higher, except for ry, rw, ly, lw) instead vocalise their first consonant after a word ending in a consonant or no word, with y becoming i, w becoming u, and the others gaining a "weak" a before them, and the final consonant of the previous word (if there is one) moves before the new vowel, whereas if the previous word ends in the vowel, the first consonant of the cluster moves to the end of that word.

Some examples to illustrate these rules:

aki

=> 'aki

kun aki

=> kun naki

multh aki

=> mul thaki

kata aki

=> kata 'aki

hawi aki

=> hawi yaki

cjanu aki

=> cjanu waki

ytiyat

=> itiyat

rnawat

=> arnawat

kun ytiyat

=> ku nitiyat

kun rnawat

=> ku narnawat

cjanu ytiyat

=> cjanuy tiyat

cjanu rnawat

=> cjanur nawat

Some simple phrases:

Naswiyan/Lessons/1 (last edited 2019-01-17 19:14:37 by Kamare)