Pronouncing and spelling Ilaini

Valdyan scholars distinguish between laynyin coli "open sounds" (vowels) and laynyin nacoli "closed sounds" (consonants), with laynyin disi "changeable sounds" (diphthongs) in between - rising diphthongs change from closed to open, falling diphthongs from open to closed.

There is no set order for letters or phonemes. Most lists and gazetteers are ordered thematically. Mailei Halla put the letters in the order shown below when she designed the system of writing that has become the standard.

If something does need to be ordered by letter, usually only the first letter is taken into account.

Speech sounds

I use Evan Kirshenbaum's ASCII IPA representation with some slight modifications. The real IPA font is SIL Doulos IPA, distributed by SIL, formerly the Summer Institute of Linguistics. For faster downloading, I give all inline examples in either transcription or ASCII IPA. This means that you don't have to have the IPA font installed or to load a lot of little pictures. If you want to try the Valdyan font used for the examples in the table, you can find it on our constructed languages page.

Laynyin coli - Vowels

Ilaini
Transcription	a	y	i	e	o	u
IPA
ASCII IPA	a	i"	i	e, E	O	u

In the south "y" is still long, one of the few long vowels left after the vowel shift that happened some time between the founding of the kingdom and the time of Vegelin the Great. In some southern dialects (notably in Essle) "y" is pronounced [i:] and its length is the only thing to distinguish it from "i" [i]. When "y" or "i" is in an unstressed final syllable, for instance in many proper names, it's often flattened to [I]. Most names in -in have a variant spelling in -yn and vice versa.

Of all the vowels only "e" has two markedly different pronunciations: [e] in open syllables, [E] in closed syllables. When unstressed at the end of a word, "e" tends to shwa, but usually doesn't quite reach that stage.

Unstressed "e" at the beginning of a word (as in echain "past") is almost always pronounced [a].

Stressed "e" and "i" at the beginning of a word are usually pronounced (and sometimes written) [je] and [ji].

In the dialect of the Western Plain, "u" is fronted to [y] and speakers of this dialect tend to hear the eastern [u] as closer to [o] or even [au], especially in dialects that have retained the long vowel [u:] (for instance in most of Ryshas).

Laynyin disi - Diphthongs

Ilaini
Transcription	ai	ay	oy	au	ei	ey	iy
IPA
ASCII IPA	a;	A;	O;	a<w>	e;	e;	i;

In most dialects "ai" is pronounced [a], always stressed, where the spelling with "i" serves only to show the stress. In the north, there's little difference between "ai" and "ay", except that "ai" is always stressed, even in a normally unstressed syllable (as in the name Valain). In southern dialects "ay" is pronounced very long, [A:j], and this is the feature of southern speech that's most often made fun of by northerners.

In careful southern speech, the "e" of "ey" is slightly longer than that of "ei". In the north there's no noticeable difference.

Ilaini
Transcription	ea	ia	ya	ie	ye	yi
IPA
ASCII IPA	E@, ja	ja	ja	je	je	ji

The glide of "ia" and "ie" is considered to be more open than that of "ya" and "ye", and the glide of "ea" more open still, but in practice it's hard to hear the difference. In some dialects (that of Valdis, among others, and as such considered "civilised") "ea" is pronounced falling, much like (British) English non-rhotic air.

Laynyin nacoli - Consonants

Ilaini
Transcription	p	b	f	v	m
IPA
ASCII IPA	p	b	f	v	m

In western dialects (the region around Ildis) the difference between "f" and "v" is much greater than in eastern dialects, so much that someone from the west will hear eastern "v" as [f] and someone from the east will hear western "v" as [w]. Eastern [v] is often hardly voiced at all, only somewhat less tense than [f]. The same goes for [s] and [z].

Ilaini
Transcription	t	d	th	dh	n	l	lh
IPA
ASCII IPA	t	d	T	D	n	l	s<lat>

The sound indicated by [s<lat>] is the voiceless lateral fricative spelt "ll" in Welsh, "lh" in transcriptions of Tibetan and "hl" in Teonaht. It can indeed be seen as a species of "s", though I (like the Welsh, the Valdyans and the Teonim) prefer to see it as a species of "l".

To pronounce it, put your tongue in the position where you normally say "l" and, without moving the tongue, try to say "s".

Ilaini
Transcription	c	g	ch	gh	h	r	rh
IPA
ASCII IPA	k	g	x	Q	h	r"	r"<o>

I transcribe the [k] sound with "c" partly for historical and esthetic reasons, and partly because both "c" and "ch" tend to be palatalized before front vowels: they become [c] and [C] respectively.

There's no voiceless aspirated uvular "r" (transcribed "rh") in Kirshenbaum's ASCII IPA, so I write it as a devoiced uvular "r". In most people's speech "rh" has some aspiration.

The uvular [r"] and [r"<o>] have apico-alveolar allophones: (voiced) [r<trl>] and (voiceless aspirated) [r<o>].

Ilaini
Transcription	s	z	sh	zh	j
IPA
ASCII IPA	s	z	S	Z	j

In western dialects "j" at the beginning of a word is usually pronounced [dZ] (voiced alveolar affricate); in Idanyas it often disappears altogether, so that Jeran will hear his name pronounced ['eran] in Dol-Rayen, ['jeran] in Valdis (the standard usage) and ['dZeran] in Tal-Crun.

Note that in the dictionary [j] still has the old transcription "y" in most places; this will be fixed at some unspecified time in the future.

Writing and spelling

Nearly all children learn their letters, and Ilaini is easy to spell: for most dialects the spelling is almost phonetic. In schools everywhere in the country an attempt at "the Queen's spelling" is taught. All the same, regional variations show in the spelling. It's easy to see that a clerk comes from the north when she writes "y" and "i" indiscriminately, or that she comes from the east when she mixes up "f" and "v". Most of the time, variations are tolerated as long as the meaning is clear.

More competent clerks, like Halla's apprentice Aldan who wrote the Book of Halla's Left Hand, use ligatures whenever they can. Common ligatures are "aich", "ain", "se", "she", "do" and many others. This makes some texts hard to read for the uninitiated. In the table above, most signs for diphthongs are really ligatures of the constituent vowels.

Last updated: 07-Sep-2002