Haoli/Pronunciation Guide

How to Read the Pronunciation Guide

This pronunciation guide is divided into a section of sounds with English analogs and a section with sounds that do not appear in English with examples of where they appear in other languages. Symbols in square brackets [] are symbols found in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) known as phones and symbols in triangle brackets <> are how the phone is written in Haoli romanization and are known as graphemes.

Sounds Common to English

Consonants

These consonants are pronounced exactly as they are in English and are written just like their IPA symbol.
[p], [t], [k], [d], [g], [m], [n], [f], [s], [h], [v], [l]

These are sounds that appear in English, but the IPA symbol for them is not so quickly recognizable.

• [θ] = th as in think, and is written <þ>
• [ð] = th as in this, and is written <ð>
• [ʃ] = sh as in shopping, and is written <c>
• [j] = y as in yellow, and is written <j>
• [ŋ] = ng as in running, and is written <nh>
• [ɲ] = ñ as in piña colada, and is written <nj>

Note: Any time you find a doubled consonant, the duration of pronunciation is extended or the consonant is emphasized (eg <pp> would be emphasized, whereas <ff> would be lengthened).

Vowels

These vowels are pronounced exactly as they are in English (with the exception of [i]) but only as they are in these particular contexts. They are written exactly as their IPA symbol.

• [a] = a as in father
• [e] = e as in better
• [o] = o as in phone
• [i] = ee as in speech

Note: ALL vowels have a long counterpart where the duration of pronunciation is extended. These are written either as double vowels (eg. a long [i] written as <ii>) or they are written with a macron above them (eg. a long [i] written as <ī>).

Sounds Not Found in English

Consonants

These sounds are not found in English, but can be found in other languages.

• [r] = r as in Spanish rojo, (rolled) and is written as <r>
• [rʰ] = r as in Icelandic bera, (also rolled but with a breath of air) and is written as <rh>
• [ɣ] = g as in Modern Greek gyro, (soft g) and is written as <gh>
• [β] = v as in Spanish lava, and is written as <mh>†
• [ɬ] = ll as in Welsh Llewelyn, (almost a lisped sh) and is written as <lh>

†The grapheme <mh> is pronounced as [b] when it is located at the end of a word.