CLICK HERE FOR BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND MYSPACE LAYOUTS »

Sunday, March 29, 2009

6) KAMTOK SOUND

Kamtok is a non-rhotic and syllable-timed. It has seven vowels /i, e, ɛ, a, ɔ, o, u/ and four diphthongs /ei, ai, au, oi/.
a, e and o are pronounced similar to the "pure" vowels of Spanish; eh is similar to the 'e' sound in English "bet"; oh is similar to the 'aw' sound in "awful".

Many speakers do not differentiate the vowels in the English words
"cot"
"court"
"cut"
=pronouncing all these words as koht.

Many speakers of Kamtok (especially uneducated, rural speakers) use the sounds and sound patterns of their mother tongues.
Consonants are always followed by vowels (CVCV) except for except at the end of a word, where the last sound may be a nasal sound, such as m, n or ng (e.g. CVCVN):


arata/alata 'rodent'
kam 'come'
midu 'middle'
sikin 'skin'

0 comments: