Béu : Chapter 1 : The Sounds

..... The sounds of béu

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The full range of sounds heard in béu are given below according to the conventions of the I.P.A. (International Phonetic Alphabet)

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	labial	labiodental	alveolar	postalveolar	palatal	velar	glottal
stops	p b		t d			k g	ʔ
fricatives		f v	s z (ð)	ʃ ʒ		(ɣ)	h
affricates				tʃ dʒ
nasals	m		n			ŋ
liquids			r l
glides	w				y

tʃ dʒ are the initial sounds of "Charlie" and "Jimmy" respectively. From now on they will be represented by c and j.

ʔ represents a glottal stop (the sound a cockney would make when he drops the "tt" in bottle). In béu this is a normal consonant ... just as real as "b" or "g" in English.

The sounds "d" and "ð" are in free variation when inside a word and between two vowels ... henceforth just referred to as d in this document.

The sounds "g" and "ɣ" are in free variation when inside a word and between two vowels ... henceforth just referred to as g in this document.

v is an allophone of f when inside a word and between vowels.

z is an allophone of s when inside a word and between two voiced^* sounds.

ʃ is also an allophone of s when before the front vowel i or before the consonant y. ʃ is found in English and is usually represented by "sh" (as in "shell")

ʒ is an allophone of s when the above two conditions apply at the same time. ʒ turns up in English in one or two words. It is the middle consonant in the word "pleasure".

ŋ is an allophone of n when followed by k or g. ŋ is found in English and is usually represented by "ng" (as in "sing").

l is a clear lateral in all environments.

r is an approximant in all environments.

p, t and k are never aspirated. And on the other hand b, d and g are more voiced than in English (i.e. the voice onset time is a lot earlier)

^* Actually all the phonemes are voiced, apart from p, t, k, s, f, h and ʔ.

The béu phoneme inventory is shown below.

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	labial	labiodental	alveolar	postalveolar	palatal	velar	glottal
stops	p b		t d			k g	ʔ
fricatives		f	s				h
affricates				tʃ dʒ
nasals	m		n
liquids			r l
glides	w				y

There are 5 basic vowels ... a, e, i, o, u plus ə. However the schwa is only used in the grammar and does not appear in any actual words. There are 6 diphthongs ... ai, au, oi, eu, ia and ua. Note that while the sounds ia and ua are possible sound combinations in English, they each are realised as two syllables. In béu the two components are more intertwined ... the flow into each other more. And they each represent only one syllable. Certain people pronounce e and o more open, when in an open syllable, but for others, e and o are the same in all environments.

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béu differentiates between words using tone. All single syllable words have either a high tone (for example pás = "I") or a low tone (for example pà = me). All multi-syllable words lack tone (or can be said to have neutral tone). If a single syllable word, receives an affix making it into a multi-syllable word, its tone will become neutralised. If a word count was done on a typical béu text, it would be found that around 17% of words have a high tone, 33% have a low tone and 50% have the neutral tone.

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All non-monosyllables have stress on the first syllable. If this initial syllable is light (i.e. no initial consonant cluster, no diphthong and no coda) then the vowel will have nearly twice its normal length. For example, take the words mulu (beatle) and huŋgu (swan) and kludau (to write). The initial u in mulu is a lot longer than the other 4 instances of u. However it doesn't receive any special marking. This extra length is totally predictable from its location.

NB ... no minimal pair can be found to differentiate uu from u.

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Don't let the tones put you off learning béu. The chances are vanishingly small that you will cause a misunderstanding by pronouncing one of the short words wrong. And even if you speak the language and put absolutely no effort into getting the tones right ... no problem, it will just mark you out as a non-native speaker, you will be understood virtually all the time.

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In the béu writing system a small dot is placed to the right of the word if it has a high tone. If single syllable words are come across that do not have a dot .... well then you know that they must be low tone.

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..... Some interjections

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All languages have a small set of interjections. Often these words fall outside the normal phonology of the language ; béu is no exception. These words are normally elucidated singly. Also they usually have a set pitch contour. The pitch contours of the interjections below are shown by the red lines.

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The bottom two words. The words for "yes" and "no" are not usually considered interjections. However I have included them here because they have distinctive tone contours (or at least they do when uttered alone). However they fit within the normal rules of béu phonology.

Below is how they are written.

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The first vowel sound in "ohoo" is usually not quite as long as a double length vowel, and the final vowel sound is usually a bit longer than a double length vowel.

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..... Consonant clusters

Word initial

The following consonants and consonant clusters can begin a word;-

ʔ
m	my
y
j			jw
f	fy	fl
b	by	bl	bw
g		gl	gw
d			dw
l
c			cw
s/ʃ		sl	sw
k	ky	kl	kw
p	py	pl
t			tw
w
n	ny
h

Word medial

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The following consonants and consonant clusters can be found in the middle of a word ;-

lʔ

lm

ly

lj

lf

lb

lg

ld

lc

lz/lʒ

lk

lp

lt

lw

ln

lh

ʔ

m

j

f

b

g

d

l

c

z/ʒ

k

p

t

n

h

nʔ

ny

nj

nf

mb

ŋg

nd

nc

nz/nʒ

ŋk

mp

nt

mw

nh

sʔ

zm

ʒy

zb

zg

zd

zl

sk

sp

st

zw

zn

sh

Above are 58 medial consonants/consonant-clusters. Actually there is a zero option as well. For example kli.o (knife). So we can say there are 59 possibilities.

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And also there are actually 38 possible initial consonants/consonant-clusters as there are some words that start with a vowel.

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Word final

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The consonants n, s and r can occur word finally.

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..... Vowel clusters

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The vowels and diphthongs are ... ai e eu u ua a ia i oi o and au

When I write béu words using the latin alphabet, I will sometimes insert a dot "." to indicate syllable breaks. For example ...

iyo.ito (itsy-bitsy, tiny) is a 4-syllable word. If I had written it without the dot it would have been a 3-syllable word. Of course when written in the béu script there is no ambiguity.

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..... The plural and dual

Regular plurals

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Most multi-syllable nouns end in one of the vowels e u a i or o.

To show plurality, these are changed into eu ua ai ia and oi respectively. For example ...

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nambo = house, namboi = houses

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The normal way for single-syllable nouns to show plurality is to put the word nò in front of the noun.

nò means number (well it does when it is not qualifying another noun). For example ...

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húa = head, nò húa = heads

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A very small number of multi-syllable nouns end in ai or au. For plurality they add a (that is another syllable ... a ... is suffixed to the word). For example ...

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nandau = word, nandau.a = words

moltai = doctor, moltai.a = doctors

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The dual

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There are a few nouns (mostly body parts) that have a dual form as well as a plural form. All the word that can take a dual end in a. The dual form is made by changing the a to au.

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wá	eye or eyes	wáu	a pair of eyes	nò wá	eyes
elza	ear or ears	elzau	a pair of ears	elzai	ears
duva	arm/hand	duvau	a pair of arms/hands	duvai	arms/hands
poma	leg/foot	pomau	a pair of legs/feet	pomai	legs/feet
gluma	breast or breasts	glumau	a nice pair	glumai	breasts
jwuba	buttock or buttocks	jwubau	an arse	jwubai	buttocks
ploka	cheek or cheeks	plokau	cheeks	plokai	cheeks
olna	shoulder or shoulders	olnau	a pair of shoulders	olnai	sholders
kloga	shoes or shoe	klogau	a pair of shoes	klogai	shoes

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Actually the plural forms of the above are hardly ever encountered. For these words, the dual form is by far the most commonly encountered form.

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There is one word that doesn't end in a that has a dual form ...

glabu = "person" and has the regular plural form glabua, however it also has a dual form ...

glabau = "two people" or "a couple" (not necessary married but the word gives a very strong connotation that the couple are intimate/having sexual relations)

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Irregular plurals

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Three single-syllable words have irregular plurals. These are ;-

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bàu	man	bawa	men
glá	woman	gala	women
nò	number	nòi	numbers

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Also there are 7 nouns for which the basic form has a collective meaning and to refer to "one member of" the final vowel must be deleted and replaced with ai

toti	children	totai	a child
bode	small birds	bodai	a small bird
fiʒi	fish	fizai	a fish
alha	flowers	alhai	a flower
ʔupo	trees	ʔupai	a tree
yinki	crumpet	yinkai	a young unmarried woman, an attractive girl, a virgin
wazbia	distance	wazbai	3,680 m (the unit used for measuring distance)

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Note ... alhabu = a bunch of flowers, a bouquet ... fizbu = a school of fish ... bodebu = a flock of birds ... pobu = forest

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..... Thread writing

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béu has 17 consonants.

For some of these the form differs slightly, depending upon whether the letter is at word initial, word medial or word final.

The three forms are shown below.

béu has 5 vowels and 6 diphthongs.

The form of these doesn't change with their position.

These are shown below.

To give you better idea of what thread writing looks like, I have listed below the 12 colours of béu.

Nice, eh ... sort of organic

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..... Letter saying

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When speaking out the letters, each letter has a word associated with it. This is a bit like when we say "sierra tango echo ..." to spell out a name over the telephone.

letter	associated name	meaning
ʔ	ʔusʔa	a giraffe
m	moŋgo	a gibbon
y	yeme	a frog/toad
j	jamba	a pelican
f	fanfa	a horse
b	biabia	a butterfly
g	gaivai	a flamenco
d	duzu	an oryx
l	lata	a cow
c	compa	a palm tree
s	sadu	an elephant
k	kiŋki	a fir tree
p	pikau	a peacock
t	tauta	a hammerhead shark
w	wenye	a scorpion
n	nùa	a mouse/rat
h	habis*	a bee

We use a different system for the vowels. We add the vowel to san to speak out the vowels. For example ...

To spell naike (sharp) we would say nùa sanai kiŋki sane dù

To spell a vowel that has left.dot (high tone) you substitute dit for san. For example ...

wías (we) would be spelt wenye ditia sadu dù

r is designated by huka (which means hook)

dù is a particle, used with numbers and when spelling, that indicates you have finished a word.

Note ... there is a word dito which means "dot" or "point". Also there is a word santai which means vowel.

táu = letter, character, "symbol used to represent a sound, syllable, word or number"

When a letter is mentioned by itself ( i.e. not as part of a string) it takes the form produced by word building with the above. For example ...

gaivətau = the symbol given to the sound "g" in béu

nuatau = the symbol given to the sound "n" in béu

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* This word has an interesting etymology. alha = flower : alhabis = attracted to flowers

So habis can be seen to be a rubbed down version of alhabis

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..... The numbers

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béu has a unique word for every number from 1 up to 1727₁₀

For example ...

ela	= 6
icauva	= 7212
idaiba	= 50312
idaigauba	= 54312
ulaigau	= 64012

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These 1727 words are made up from smaller elements, using the duodecimal system. These smaller elements are shown in the table below ...

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10012 =	ajai	1012 =	ajau	one =	aja
20012 =	uvai	2012 =	uvau	two =	auva
30012 =	ibai	3012 =	ibau	three =	aiba
40012 =	agai	4012 =	ugau	four =	uga
50012 =	idai	5012 =	idau	five =	ida
60012 =	ulai	6012 =	ulau	six =	ela
70012 =	icai	7012 =	icau	seven =	oica
80012 =	ezai	8012 =	ezau	eight =	eza
90012 =	okai	9012 =	okau	nine =	oka
T0012 =	apai	T012 =	apau	ten =	iapa
E0012 =	atai	............. E012 =	atau	............ eleven =	uata

Note ... I am using T to represent the number "ten", and E to represent the number "eleven".

To construct a number from the above ...

1) Select which elements you need. For example, for 543₁₂, you will need the elements idai + ugau + aiba

2) If the element is non-initial, delete the initial vowel of the element => idai + gau + ba

3) And now, simply join the elements up => idaigauba

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You will noticed that 12 numbers over eleven have been shortened. For example the "regular" form for 20 would be auvau, but this is actually uvau.

Also the number 6, ela has been shortened. This would have been eula if everything was perfectly regular.

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Numbers are never written out in full. As if in English you never came across the word "seven" but also came across "7". Actually in béu there are two ways to write "7" depending on what environment you find yourself..

Within a textblock they are written vertically (to fit in with everything else) and are headed up by a symbol that looks like "Z". After that the number is written using the symbol for the consonant part of the basic numbers (i.e. 1 -> 11). The symbol for h is used for inserting zeroes in the textblock form (this h symbol would never be pronounced).^*. Magnitude is dependent on position.

When not in textblocks ( i.e. when on part of a page or a blackboard given over to manipulating mathematic expressions) numbers are expressed by symbols that are based on the Western Mathematical Tradition. This is called the "free form" of the number.

Below is how five numbers (given previously in NUMBERS) would appear in both forms.

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It can be seen that the free form is written horizontally while the textblock form is written vertically.

If you have a number string more than three digits long you must have at least one "magnitude" word. The magnitude words and symbols are given below.

The circle is the béu decimal point. The other marks are equivalent to the comma's that we use to divide up large numbers into blocks of three digits. However instead of only having comma's and decimal points to divide up the number, we have 7 symbols.

Actually all the magnitude numbers are also common nouns as well. These are given on the right-hand-side.

To demonstrate the use of the magnitude words I will introduce a long number. I haven't worked out how to express it in base ten, but in base twelve it is ...

1,206,8E3,051.58T,630,559,62 ... where T represents ten and E represents eleven

In béu it would be pronounced ... aja huŋgu uvaila nàin ezaitauba wúa idauja omba idaizaupa yanfa elaibau mulu idaidauka ʔiwetu elaivau dù ... notice that all the magnitude words are spoken out.

Below is how this number is written in textblock form.

Amd below is how this number is written in free form.

The 7 magnitude words extend the range of numbers expressible. Remember that béu only actually has words for 1-> 1727. But even with the help of magnitude words, the number range expressible in béu restricted.

In textblock form a number is aways finished of with one of the three symbols given below ...

These are called exactness words. They are also spoken out when reciting a number.

The "trunkated" symbol means that some digits have been lopped off, rather being rounded up or down. For example, if you expressed "pie" as 3.1415 you would use the trunkated symbol (actually 3.1416 is closer to the actual number than 3.1415).

It should be quite obvious what "exact" means. "approximate" has a rather loose meaning ... basically anything not "exact". The "trunkated" and "approximate" symbols are both usually spoken as daula, There is a more exact technical expression for trunkated (???) but you hardly ever come across it.

Below are some more symbols used in mathematics. Obviously these symbols would be used in a free form area (i.e. the free form part of a page)

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Note ... The symbol for four is not circular. It seems to "sag" ... it is bigger at the bottom than at the top ... not exactly egg-shaped either but ...

^*If you had a leading zero you would use the word jù. 007 would be jù jù oica (three words). To deal with a telephone number, you would lump the numbers in threes (any leading zero or zeroes by themselves though) and outspeak the numbers. If you were left with a single digit (say 4) it would be pronounced agai. If you were to pronounce it uga, it would of course mean 004. Also you would probably add the particle dù at the end. This means "exactly" (or it can mean the speaker has finished outspeaking the number).

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... Index

1. Introduction to Béu
2. Béu : Chapter 1 : The Sounds
3. Béu : Chapter 2 : The Noun
4. Béu : Chapter 3 : The Verb
5. Béu : Chapter 4 : Adjective
6. Béu : Chapter 5 : Questions
7. Béu : Chapter 6 : Derivations
8. Béu : Chapter 7 : Way of Life 1
9. Béu : Chapter 8 : Way of life 2
10. Béu : Chapter 9 : Word Building
11. Béu : Chapter 10 : Gerund Phrase
12. Béu : Discarded Stuff
13. A statistical explanation for the counter-factual/past-tense conflation in conditional sentences