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Montreiano - sounds and alphabet

From:Barry Garcia <barry_garcia@...>
Date:Saturday, November 25, 2000, 7:52
I'm almost done with school soon, so I will have more over my winter
vacation (6 weeks, yeah, baby!). As for what I know and have, here is some
of it.

Alphabet

I wasnt too happy with the schemes for è and ò,so I decided to keep them
as /E/ and /O/. Names at the end.

Vowels

a - /a/, a
e - /e/ , e
è - /E/ , è
i - /i/, i, /j/ in front of vowels
o - /o/, o
ò -/O/, ò
u - /u/, u, /w/ in front of vowels

Diphthongs

ai - /ai/, ai
au - /au/, au
ei - /ej/, ei
èi - /Ej/,èi
oi - /oj/, oi
òi - /oj/, òj

*i'm not too sure of the full range of these

Consonants

b - /B/, be
c - /k/, que
ç - /ts/, çe
d - /D/, de
f - /f/, efe
g - /g/ before a, o, or u. /Z/ before i and e, ge
h - silent. hach
j - /h/, jota - rare, used only in borrowed words with the /h/ phoneme
k - /k/, ka - used in foreign words
l - /l/. ele
ll - /lj/, elle
m - /m/, eme
n - /n/, ene
ñ - /N/, eñe
p - /p/, pe
q - /k/ - in front of u, with dieresis on u, /kw/, qu
r - /r/, ere
rr - /rr/ (trilled), erre
s - /s/, ese
t - /t/, te
v - /B/, in some dialects, /b/, ve
w - /w/, in borrowed words. doul be
x - /S/, xe
y - /j/, borrowed words, i grèga
z - /dz/, zeta

Stress

Stress is generally on the penultimate (and this is the default with
borrowed words). Orthographically it is not depicted if on the penult. If
on other syllables it is marked. With è, and ò, it generally falls on
those.

Pronunciation notes:

I'm pretty sure you all know how to pronounce the sounds with the IPA
transliterations I have given above. I will however describe some of the
dialectal differences.

b, v, are in more rural / less educated areas, pronounced as /b/. Educated
speakers tend to stick with the standard pronunciation of those two as
/B/.

d in educated speech is pronounced as /D/. In rural areas it is pronounced
as /d/.

z is often pronounced as /s/ in rural areas, instead of /dz/


That's it for the sounds....more to come later.