Mirad Grammar/Pronunciation

= Consonants =

Consonant graphemes and phonemes

 * The following chart shows the correspondence of the consonants and their phomemic values in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA):

Pronunciation of Consonants

 * The following chart shows the Mirad consonants with their phonemic values in the IPA:


 * The phonemes /r/ and /l/ are consonant liquids and behave in a special way in forming words in Mirad.


 * In Mirad, every consonant has a one-to-one correspondence with a single phoneme (ideal sound). Mirad does not use digraphs like sh or ph to represent consonant sounds.  There are no double consonants, although sometimes a consonant will come together with the same consonant in the same word, but not the same syllable.  There are no silent consonants.  Also, there are no letters in "native" Mirad with diacritical marks like &eacute; or &ntilde;.


 * Here are the letters that are pronounced somewhat differently from English:


 * The letter x is pronounced like an sh in English, or a ch in French.
 * In native Mirad words, h is pronounced like the h in English hand. It is sometimes used to simulate foreign sounds like the ch in Yiddish la ch ayim (to life!), or German Ba ch .  If h comes at the end of a word, it is silent, but, being a consonant, it can serve to move the stress to the word-final syllable, as in Allah, pronounced a-LA.


 * The letter j is pronounced like the zh in Russian  Zh ivago or the ge in English mira ge .


 * The letter s is always unvoiced as English ss and never sounds like a z.


 * The letter g is always a hard sound as in English  g ap, not as in English wa g e.


 * The letter c represents the unvoiced affricative sound t͡ʃ like the ch in English  ch ur ch . Some chemical names and metric units use the letter c, such as calilk (chlorine).


 * The unvoiced plosives p, t, and k are pronounced without the puff of breath that sometimes follows them in their English counterparts. The corresponding consonants in French are exact equivalents.


 * The consonant r should be a flap or trill like the r in Brit. Eng. ve r y or the single, intervocalic r in Spanish pe r o.


 * The consonant q is usually pronounced as a k, but in foreign borrowings or proper names, it may be pronounced according to context.


 * The consonants in the Mirad alphabet correspond one-to-one with phonemes. There are no cases of consonant sounds being represented in native words by digraphs as in English ph, sh, ch, or th.  For example, the sh sound in English is represented by x in Mirad.  The English ch sound is represented in Mirad with the letter c.  There are no equivalents in Mirad for the English sounds th in this or the th in think, but the combination th in foreign borrowings is pronounced as it is in the source language.


 * Here is a chart showing the phonetic values of Mirad consonants:

= Vowels =
 * Mirad vowels are divided into simple and glided vowels. The simple vowels are single letters, while the complex vowels have one or more semi-vowel glides (y or w) prefixed or suffixed.

Simple Vowels
The Mirad graphemes (alphabetic letters) used to represent the simple vowel phonemes (minimal meaningful sounds) are as follows:

Pronunciation of Simple Vowels

 * The simple vowels are pronounced as they are in many European Latin-based languages. The table below gives their phonetic values and some close examples in Spanish and French, and not-so-close examples in English.

Glided Vowels

 * Glided vowels are those preceded or followed by the semi-vowel glides y or w. This chart shows the possible glided vowels, their IPA equivalents, and their approximate pronunciations using English and other languages.


 * In Mirad, the above glided vowels are considered single vowels for the purposes of grammar, syllabification, and stress.


 * Note 1: International Phonetic Alphabet. See chart and click on sounds at [].
 * Note 2: Without the typical y-glide at the end of the English vowel. The vowel should be pure, as in the Romance languages of Europe.
 * Note 3: Without the typical w-glide at the end of the English vowel. The vowel should be pure, as in the Romance languages of Europe.