Conventions and Phonology
I'm going to share with you all the language spoken in Thelo, which is called Thelo, but to do it, I'm going to have to explain a little about languages first, so I'm going to ask you to be patient. Before you write about any language, it helps to know how languages are described. In our world, linguists, who are people who study languages, use the term "Inventory" to describe a set of every sound found in a language. Since writing systems vary greatly, each sound had to be described. Now there are technical terms to describe to sound quality and mouth position, but for simplicity sake, they developed a short hand called IPA or the International Phonetics Alphabet. Each sound had exactly one letter or symbol associated with it, so words could be written out phonetically without arguing about how to write each sound. Of course when writing for those unfamiliar with linguistics, the sounds are described is by comparing them to words in the meta language, in this case, English, with the same sounds. I'm going to try to kill multiple birds with one stone here. I'll write out the inventory of the Thelo language in IPA, and describe each sound so that when I start throwing words at you, you'll know how to pronounce them. This is, naturally, in spoken Thelo. Written Thelo uses non-standard characters, and we'll get to that. This is just how the words are pronounced.
β-A sound we don't have in English. Best described as halfway between a v and a w. like this.
ɸ- Another sound we don't have in English. Like making the eff sound with your lips rounded. Like so.
v- As in the English word "Velvet" Here
f- As in the English word "fifth" As seen here
θ- As in the sound made by "th" in the English word "Thick" one of two uses of the letter combination.
ð- As in the sound made by "th" in the English word "There". The other use of the letter combination
s-As in the English word "Sass" For Example
z- As in the English word "Zig-zag" Shown here.
∫- As in the sound made by "sh" in the English word "Shush" Demonstrated here.
ʒ- As in the sound made by the final "ge" in garage. Observe
l- As in the English word "Lull" the alveolar version, as in English
j- As in the sound made by "y" in the English word "Yay!" Sort of like the German use of the letter.
æ- As in the sound made by "a" in the English word "cat". It's where it's at.
ɛ- As in the sound made by "e" in the English word "Ebb". A mediocre sound at best.
ɑ- As in the sound made by the "o" in the English word "cot" and sometimes caught.
e- As in the sound made by "ai" in the English word "bait". found here
o- As in the English word "ode". Displayed in further detail
i- As in the English word "Iodine". details here
I- As in the English "It" Here it is
~ -Another Sound we don't have in English. This is my own, non-standard representation of palatal clicks, meaning a click made by closing the tongue against the palate about halfway back in the mouth
' - Yet another sound we don't have in English. This is my own, non-standard representation of alveolar clicks, meaning a click made by closing the tongue against the very beginning of the alveolar ridge, which is just behind the teeth (There are no standard IPA symbols for clicks)
There you have it: a brief lesson on linguistics and the inventory of the Thelo language. More on the language to come.