Lesson 1 – Sounds and Spelling

The Kuyani alphabet

a b d i k l lh ly m n ng nh ny p rd rl rn r R rr t th ty u w y

Vowels:

a 

 

sounds like the ‘a’ in father and not the a in mat.

i

This letter sounds like the ‘i’ in the English word pit or sometimes like the ‘ee’ in meet. 

u

This letter sounds like the ‘oo’ sound in the English word ‘cook’ or the ‘u’ in put and  not like the ‘u’ in but.

 

Consonants

k

sounds like the ‘k’ in kite.

l

sounds like the ‘l’ in lamb.

ly

sounds like the ‘ll’ sound in million, not like the ‘ly’ in apply.

m

sounds like the ‘m’ in man.

n

sounds like the ‘n’ in name.

ng

sounds like the ‘ng’ sound in sing. To practice making this sound, say “sing–ngami.”

nh

sounds like the ‘n’ in nose but the tongue is brought forward so that it pushes against your front teeth.

ny

sounds like the ‘ni’ sound in onion.

p

sounds like the ‘p’ in pen.

r

This is the tapped r. It is similar to the ‘dd’ sound in the English word ladder when said quickly.

R

This is called the retroflexed r. It is similar to the ‘rr’ sound in narrow or the ‘r’ in paradise.

rr

This sound is the rolled ‘r’ and it does not exist in English. In order to make this sound, you will need to place your tongue as you would for a tapped ‘r’ (described above) but draw it out a bit longer so that the tongue is vibrating against the roof of your mouth.

t

sounds like the ‘t’ in touch.

th

as in the ‘t’ in tape but with the tip of your tongue between your teeth. This is not similar to the ‘th’ sound in ‘think’ as no air is being pushed out through your teeth.

ty

These two letters sound like the ‘dg’ sound in the English word judge. 

w

sounds like the ‘w’ in what or away.

y

as in the ‘y’ sound in yes and yarn, never like the ‘y’ in silly.

Other consonants:

The sounds ‘b’ and ‘d’ are only used to show ‘pre-stopping’ in Kuyani. This is a feature of only a small number of languages in the world. Pre-stopping means that a really short stop or pause occurs just before the next sound in a word.

b

sounds like the ‘b’ in the English word ball. It may only occur before the ‘m’ sound in Kuyani and nowhere else.

d

this sound may only occur before ‘n’, ‘nh’,’ny’ and ‘l’, ‘lh’,’ly’  sounds in Kuyani to show pre-stopping.