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):

Correspondence of Consonant Graphemes and Phonemes

Grapheme	b	c	d	f	g	h	j	k	l	m	n	p	q	r	s	t	v	x	z
Phoneme	/b/	/t͡ʃ/	/d/	/f/	/g/	/h/	/ʒ/	/k/	/l/	/m/	/n/	/p/	/k/	/ɽ/	/s/	/t/	/v/	/ʃ/	/z/

Pronunciation of Consonants

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

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		/m/	/n/
Plosive	voiced	/b/	/d/		/g/
	unvoiced	/p/	/t/		/k/
Affricate	voiced
	unvoiced			/t͡ʃ/
Fricative	voiced	/v/	/z/	/ʒ/
	unvoiced	/f/	/s/	/ʃ/		/h/
Approximate			/l/
Flap			/ɽ/

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 é or ñ.

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

• The letter x is pronounced like an sh in English.

• The letter h is never silent. 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 lachayim (to life!), or German Bach.

• The letter j is pronounced like the zh in Russian Zhivago or the ge in English mirage.

• 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 gap, not as in English wage.

• The letter c represents the unvoiced affricate sound t͡ʃ like the ch in English church. 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. very or the single, intervocalic r in Spanish pero.

• 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.

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

Consonants

MIRAD CONSONANT/ SEMI-CONSONANT GRAPHEME	IPA	ARTICULATION	NEAREST EQUIVALENTS
b	[b]	unaspirated voiced bilabial plosive	French bon, English boy
c	[tʃ]	unvoiced palato-alveolar affricate	English child, Spanish chico (only used in foreign words)
d	[d]	unaspirated voiced alveolar plosive	French de, English dog
f	[f]	unvoiced bilabial fricative	English fog
g	[g]	unaspirated voiced velar plosive	French gare, English good (always hard, even before e and i)
h	[h] [x]	glottal fricative	English house (used in foreign words and names as a kh-like sound like German Bach
j	[ʒ]	voiced palatal fricative	French je or English mirage
k	[k]	unaspirated unvoiced velar fricative	French carte, English kite (without aspiration) or French comment
l	[l]	voiced post-alveolar lateral approximant	English love or French bel (never a dark l as in English bell.
m	[m]	voiced bilabial nasal	English mother
n	[n] [ŋ]	voiced alveolar nasal	English nobody Before g or k, like English fang
p	[p]	unvoiced bilabial plosive	French pain, English pan (without aspiration)
q	-	-	(Only used in foreign words, where it has various k-like or guttural pronunciations)
r	[r]	alveolar flap	Spanish mira or Italian Roma or British Eng. 'very
s	[s]	unvoiced alveolar fricative	Always hard as in English safe (never a z sound as in rose)
t	[t]	unaspirated unvoiced alveolar plosive	French tous, English top (without aspiration)
v	[v]	voiced bilabial fricative	English very
x	[ʃ]	unvoiced post-alveolar fricative	English shape or French cher
z	/z/	voiced alveolar fricative	English zone. German speakers, beware. Mirad z is pronounced like a German s, as in Sohn, not like z as in zehn, which sounds more like ts.

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:

Vowel Graphemes and Phonemes

Grapheme	a	e	i	o	u
Phoneme	/a/	/e/	/i/	/o/	/u/

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.

Simple Vowels

VOWEL	IPA1	SPANISH	FRENCH	ENGLISH APPROXIMATION
a	[a]	mano	à	father
e	[e]	hecho	et	day 2
i	[i]	si	si	see2
o	[o]	no	de l'eau	so3
u	[u]	tu	ou	too3

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.

Glided Vowels

GLIDED VOWELS	IPA1	PRONUNCIATION
PRE-Y-GLIDED VOWELS
ya	[ja]	Eng. yacht, Fr. hiacinthe (there is)
ye	[je]	Eng. yet, Fr. grillé (grilled)
yi	[ji]	Eng. yeast*, Fr. bouilli
yo	[jo]	Eng. yoke*, Fr. maillot
yu	[ju]	Eng. you*, Fr. piou-piou
PRE-W-GLIDED VOWELS
wa	[wa]	Eng. water, Fr. gouache (poster paint)
we	[we]	Eng. wet, Fr. ouais (yes)
wi	[wi]	Eng. wee2, Fr. oui (yes)
wo	[wo]	Eng. woke2
wu	[wu]	Eng. woo2
POST-Y-GLIDED
ay	[aɪ]	Eng. sight, Sp. hay (there is)
ey	[eɪ]	Eng. day, Sp. rey (king)
iy	[iɪ]	Eng. see, Fr. bille (marble)
oy	[oɪ]	Eng. boy, Sp. hoy (today)
uy	[uɪ]	Eng. gooey, Sp. muy (very)
POST-W-GLIDED
aw	[ɔ]	Eng. awe
ew	[eʊ]	Br. Eng. beau, colloq. Eng. Tell me!
iw	[iʊ]	Eng. eew! (sound of disgust), Du. niew (new)
ow	[oʊ]	Eng. know, foe
uw	[uʊ]	Eng. goo
CIRCUM-Y-GLIDED
yay	[jaɪ]	Eng. yikes
yey	[jeɪ]	Eng. yea!
yiy	[jiɪ]	Eng. yeesh! (sound of disgust)
yoy	[joɪ]	Eng. yoink ( = New Jyoizy )
yuy	[juɪ]	Eng. Hughie
PRE-W-POST-Y-GLIDED
way	[waɪ]	Eng. wise, Fr. ouailles (flock)
wey	[weɪ]	Eng. way
wiy	[wiɪ]	Eng. wee! (sound of fun)
woy	[woɪ]	Eng. woy (rhymes with boy)
wuy	[wuɪ]	Eng. wooish (rhymes with gooey)

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 [[1]].

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.