The Foundations of Vehevionian
Welcome to your SECOND LESSON IN VEHEVIONIAN
Now that you’ve learned the basic alphabet, we’ll start going more into the rules of pronunciation so that you can learn how to actually read Vehevionian words.
RULE #1: READ MOST WORDS EXACTLY AS WRITTEN
In Vehevionian, letters usually keep their normal sounds. There are exceptions of course, but the majority of words are pronounced as you would expect them to.
For example:
Nivir — pronounced “nee-veer”
Avini — pronounced “ah-vee-nee”
Cai — pronounced “kai”
Sau — pronounced “sa-oo”
Luru — pronounced “loo-roo”
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RULE #2: THE FINAL ‘E’ IS ALWAYS SILENT UNLESS ACCENTED
Examples:
Aeve (“ah-ev”)
Prete (“pret”)
Maeve (“mah-ev”)
Seve (“sev”)
If you see an accented ‘e’ (é), then you always pronounce it. This matters in verb tenses that we’ll study in future lessons, especially the future tense, where ‘é’ is added to show that something is going to happen.
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RULE #3: THE APOSTROPHE
The apostrophe in Vehevionian is used to show a glottal stop. A glottal stop is a tiny break in your voice. The best example of this in English is “uh-oh.”
Example:
Ne’eteo — to need
Be’e’teve — to come / to arrive
When reading these words, pause just for a little at the apostrophe. Sometimes, natives skip over it for better flow between words.
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RULE #4: SOME LETTER PAIRS CHANGE SOUND
Certain combinations of letters make special sounds.
ss — sounds like “ts”
bh — sounds like “bee”
kh — sounds like “kee”
dh — sounds like “dee”
th — just sounds like “t”
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RULE #5: KAVAHE IS PRONOUNCED DIFFERENTLY
Most Vehevionian words are pronounced how they are written, but there are obviously exceptions. One of the most important exceptions is one of the most important verbs, kavahe (to be).
It is not pronounced “kah-vah-heh.” Instead, it’s closer to: ka-veh.
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RULE #6: DO NOT OVERPRONOUNCE
It can be tempting to pronounce every letter you see in a word when first learning the language, but what’s important about Vehevionian is that words should feel smooth and natural.
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PRACTICE WORDS:
Try reading these words out loud:
Nivir — hello
Avini — goodbye
Aeve — to like/love
Prete — to have
Maeve — to do
Seve — to see/look at
Kavahe — to be
Ne’eteo — to need
Geoteo — to create
Lurehe — to go
In the next unit, we’ll take a look at more of the foundations of Vehevionian.