Vegvaraki Phonology

Vegvaraki has 33 phonemic consonants.

Notes on Pronunciation

 * 1) The nasal /ɲ/ is pronounced like Spanish ñ or Italian gni, while /ŋ/ is pronounced like English ng as in "singer".
 * 2) The plosives /pʰ,tʰ,kʰ/ and affricates /tsʰ,tʃʰ/ are pronounced with a small puff of air, like English p,t,k in "pee, tea, key".
 * 3) The plosives and affricates /b,d,g,dz,dʒ/ are voiced and prounced fairly straightforward, for example, more-or-less the same as Italian b,d,g,z,gi or English b,d,g,dz,j.
 * 4) The glottalized plosives and affricates are ejective. /pʼ,tʼ,kʼ,tsʼ,tʃʼ/ are pronounced like Georgian პ,ტ,კ,წ,ჭ (p',t',k',ts',ch'). This video explains and gives examples the pronunciation of these sounds (along with the rest of the Georgian alphabet).
 * 5) The postalveolars /tʃʰ,dʒ,tʃ',ʃ,ʒ/ are pronounced to [tɕʰ],[dʑ],[tɕʼ],[ɕ],[ʑ] in "Lunar" words and next to /i/ and [tʂʰ],[dʐ],[tʂʼ],[ʂ],[ʐ] in "Solar" words. See table for pronunciation.
 * 6) Alveolar sounds /s,z,l/ are pronounced like s and z in English and l in Spanish. /ʎ/ is pronounced like /gli/ in Italian and /ɾ/ is the single tapped R of Spanish "mira" or Italian "caro".
 * 7) /v/ is sometimes pronounced [v] (like "v") and sometimes like [w] (like "w"), depending on the dialect. and /j/ is pronounced like Spanish y as in "yo".
 * 8) Glottalized nasals and approximants are tricky and samples are not available online. They have a glottal stop before them and the throat is tensed - notice how English "button" is often pronounced "bu'-in" or in (a John Lennon accent) "bottle" is "bo'ihl". It's like this, with a glottal stop right before the N or L, but much quicker, and syllables can begin this way.

Vowels
Vegvaraki has 9 simple vowels (16 accounting for length) and 10 "dipthongs".
 * 1) Vegvaraki has strict vowel harmony where words can only contain vowels of the "solar" or "lunar" class, but not both. The vowel /i,iː/ is alone in the "mediating" class, meaning that it can appear in words of either the solar or lunar classes.
 * 2) "Steady" vowels are monophthongs and can be long or short.
 * 3) "Changing" vowels can be "rising" (beginning with /j/ or /v~w/) or "falling" (ending with /j/ or /v~w/). The front rounded vowels /øː/ and /yː/ are categorized as "falling changing" due to historically being pronounced /øe/ and /yi/.
 * 4) /ɘ/ and /ɨ/ are farther back and realized as /ɤ/ and /ɯ/ after velars in all dialects, and are always /ɤ,ɯ/ in some western dialects.
 * 5) The vowels /øː/ and /yː/ merged with /vɘ/, /vɨ/ respectively in eastern dialects.