Nanjey'a

Classification and Dialects
Nanjëa has one major dialect for which the language is named. The language is spoken by the Nanja people who live on the coastal plains of the planet '''Ärrella. '''

General Pronunciation
All Nanjëa letters are pronounced in every word. Most letters sound as in English with a few exceptions.

J is pronounced /j/

Ll is pronounced /ʤ/

Rr is pronounced /r/

Ĉ is pronounced /ʧ/

The Letter K
In Nanjëa the sound /k/ is always written k, and not, as in English, either k (kill), c (cat), ch (chaos), ck (tack), qu (conquer), or cqu (lacquer).

Vowels
In English each of the letters a, e, i, o, u, represents several sounds but in Nanjëa each represents only two sounds,approximately as follows:

A is pronounced /ɑ/

E is pronounced /ɛ/

I is pronounced /ɪ/

O is pronounced /ɔ/

U is pronounced /u/

Each of these vowels can also be pronounced as a schwa, the vowel sound in English of many lightly pronounced unaccented syllables in words of more than one syllable. The schwa sounds approximately like a lightly pronounced “uh” or /ə/. In Nanjëa, vowels are pronounced as a schwa in the syllable before the accented syllable.

Diphthongs
Diphthongs are combinations of vowels where the first vowel slides to the next vowel without a break in pronunciation. Any two vowels that do not have diacritics and are next to each other in a word are pronounced as a diphthong. Theoretically any two vowels could become a diphthong but commonly there are only three not covered by umlauts:

AU sounds like the English OW in bow, ou in found

OU sounds like the English O in no, phone, most

AY sounds like Ä but is only used to end words

When two vowels are next to each other but are not pronounced as a diphthong it is denoted by placing a grave accent above the first vowel in the pair.

AI to ÀI, EI to ÈI, OI to ÒI and so on

If one of the vowels is accented in the pair it also means that it will not be pronounced as a diphthong.

Diacritics
Diacritics are signs written above or below a letter marking a change in its pronunciation. There are three types of diacritics native to Nanjëa: umlauts (ä, ë, ï, ö, ü), acute accents (á, é, í, ó, ú), grave accents (à, è, ì, ò, ù).

Umlauts
Umlauts are the only diacritics that deal with different vowel sounds. Out of the five letters that have umlauts, four of them are shorthand for common diphthongs. The fifth, ‘ï’, is pronounced as follows:

Ï sounds like the English IE in piece, niece

The other four umlaut letters are pronounced as follows:

Ä is pronounced /aɪ/

Ë sounds like the English A in blade, fake, lame

Ö sounds like the English OI in boil, oil, foil

Ü sounds like the English UI in ruin

If you don’t have access to umlauts the letters can be written as vowel combinations or diphthongs:

Ä can be written as AI

Ë can be written as EI

Ï can be written as IE

Ö can be written as OI

Ü can be written as UI

Grammatical Endings
All parts of speech in Nanjëa have a specific ending which can identify the word's part of speech.

'A', 'An', and 'The'
These words are not translated.

Lara = ''flower, a flower, or, the flower. ''

Lletëa ''= affair, an affair, or, the affair. ''

Nauna = egg, an egg, or, the egg.

Letter Names
Every vowel is named by its own sound, and every consonant by its sound plus -a. Thus: tasa (cup), is spelled aloud ta ah sa ah; leĉa (milk), la eh cha ah; ralla (moon), la oo na ah.