Appendix:Chakobsa pronunciation
Chakobsa's phoneme inventory somewhat resembles that of Arabic since the latter was Frank Herbert's main inspiration for the Chakobsa words he created. However, unlike Arabic, Chakobsa does not have pharyngeal consonants.
Standard Romanization
| Letter | IPA | Approximation | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | a | father | |
| aa | aː | like a, but longer | |
| ai | ai | sky | |
| au | au | now | |
| b | b | bother | Has the allophone [p] (spike) before voiceless consonants. |
| ch | tʃ | each | Never aspirated, spelled cch when geminated. |
| d | d | dog | |
| dh | ð | this | Spelled ddh when geminated. |
| d'h | dh | had had | |
| e | ɛ | bet | |
| f | f | fog | |
| g | g | good | |
| h | h | ham | |
| i | i | beet | |
| ii | iː | like i, but longer | |
| j | dʒ | judge | |
| k | k | sky | Never aspirated. |
| l | l | left | |
| m | m | man | |
| n | n | no | |
| o | o | moat | |
| q | q | — | Like k, but pronounced further back in the throat, with the back of the tongue contacting the uvula. |
| r | ɾ | battle | Realized [r] (Spanish perro) when geminated. |
| s | s | see | |
| sh | ʃ | sheep | Spelled ssh when geminated. |
| s'h | sh | this had | |
| t | t | stop | Never aspirated. |
| th | θ | think | Spelled tth when geminated. |
| t'h | th | it had | |
| u | u | crouton | |
| uu | uː | like u, but longer | |
| v | v | voice | |
| w | w | wave | |
| y | j | yak | |
| z | z | zoo | |
| ' | ʔ | like the catch in one's throat that occurs in between the "uh" and "oh" in English "uh-oh" | Unwritten word-initially. |
Phonetics
The IPA pronunciation symbol is indicated in slashes when different from the standard romanization.
Consonants
Chakobsa has 23 consonants.
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Stop/Affricate | b | t, d | ch /tʃ/, j /dʒ/ | k, g | q | ' /ʔ/ | |
| Fricative | f, v | th /θ/, dh /ð/ | s, z | sh /ʃ/ | h | ||
| Approximant | w | l | y /j/ | ||||
| Tap | r /ɾ/ | ||||||
Vowels
Chakobsa has 5 vowels, its 2 mid vowels are always short but the 3 others can be short or long.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i, ii /iː/ | u, uu /uː/ | |
| Mid | e /ɛ/ | o | |
| Open | a, aa /aː/ |
There are 2 diphthongs, ai and au.
Stress
Stress generally falls on the antepenultimate syllable, unless other syllables are heavier, in which case stress usually falls on the first heavy syllable from the right. However, the final consonant of a word is extrametrical, it does not make the final syllable heavy.