Béu : Chapter 1 : The Sounds

Welcome to béu

..... 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 "b" and "v" are in free variation when inside a word and between two vowels ... henceforth just referred to as b in this document.

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.

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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Apologies ... I haven't worked out how to represent IPA in Keynotes yet. So I must give the actual exclamations below ...

(a) ... iʃʃ ..... ʃ usually only occurs before i ... it has double length

(b) ... xaa ... where "x" is the sound in "loch" ... a has double length

(c) ... aiʔdo ... the glottal stop is usually not syllable final

(d) ... ohoo ... the final o has double length plus ... the initial o has single length plus.

(e) ... ullə ..... the length of the l is quite variable. Especially these days where you have video action replays. The commentator tends to match the length of the l to the length of the fail. Actually this interjection is probably related to the verb ulpa which means to make a mistake ... often used as the first element of a SVC to give a meaning similar to "mis" in "mis-hitl" or "mis-pronounce".

(f) ... ʔaa or ʔaaa

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(g) and (h) are not normally considered interjections. However ʔaiwa is said when some good news materializes (compare to English "YES !" or "Oh yeah"). Also aiya is said when some bad news materializes (compare to English "Oh No").

(i) is not an interjections. But is included here as it breaks the normaltone rules.

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(g) ... ʔaiwa meaning "yes". When said in isolation (i.e. nearly always) it takes a definite tone conture.

(h) ... aiya meaning "no". When said in isolation (i.e. nearly always) it takes a definite tone conture.

(i) ... ʔai is a sentence final yes/no question particle. Now other mono-syllables have either a high tone or a low tone. This one has a tone conture.

ʔaiwa and aiya are written as words normally are. However ʔai with its rising contour is given a special sign. Call it a shorthand sign if you want ... ... as you can see, it looks a bit like a "2".

In my transcription of this sound, I will use ʔai? ... well I can not honestly transcribe it as either ʔài or ʔái.

Actually (a) -> (f) are written in a special way as well ... respectively, they are represented by the letters for s, k, d, h, l and ʔ. However these letters are turned 30 degrees clockwise from their usual vertical orientation. One or two dots (usually used to inticate evtra long pauses) can follow if you want to signify unusual length.

Also there two phrases { "j" and "k" } which could be considered interjections. They have the intonation pattern of a single word.

(j) yuajiswe.iʃʃ which expresses consternation and/or grief. In about 30% of cases it is shortened to swe.iʃʃ only.

It means ... (say "iʃʃ" for us)

(k) hambətunmazore which expresses great joy. In about 70% of cases it is shortened to hambətun only.

It means ... (the gates to heaven have opened)

(l) And finally when somebody is telling a story or giving detailed instructions, you might say plirai at suitable intervals. This is simply a contraction of plìr ʔai? ... "do you follow ?"

(m) ... OK, we are scrapping the bottom of the barrel here. Not an exclamation in béu but maybe an exclamation in another language ... hù nén.

It expresses sudden consternation/dismay, equivalent to ... WHAT !!

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Note ... there are no exclamations for Anger, Displeasure or Embarrassment. These emotions are suffered in silence.

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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
dufa	arm/hand	dufau	a pair of arms/hands	dufai	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 ... alhafe = a bunch of flowers, a bouquet ... fiiʒife = a school of fish ... bodefe = a flock of birds ... pofe = 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.

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béu has 5 vowels and 6 diphthongs.

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

These are shown below.

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

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Nice, eh ... sort of organic

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..... Saying the letters

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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	gaifai	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 ...

táu gaifai = the symbol given to the sound "g" in béu

táu nùa = 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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... 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