Alphabet and Pronunciation

The Romániço alphabet contains 25 letters — 5 vowels and 20 consonants — most of which sound very much like their English equivalents:

ROMÁNIÇO	ENGLISH	IPA	EXAMPLE
a	a	a	father
b	b	b	boat
c	k/ts	k/ʦ	kite before all letters except e and i, when it is [ʦ] as in mitts. Written as ch to preserve the [k] sound before e and i, as ç (or, alternatively, cz) to preserve the [ʦ] sound elsewhere.¹
d	d	d	deportation
e	e	e	wet
f	f	f	famous
g	g/j	g/ʤ	gargantuan before all letters except e and i, when it is [ʤ] as in general. Written as gh to preserve the [g] sound before e and i, as ġ (or, alternatively, gx) to preserve the [ʤ] sound elsewhere.
h	h	h	homeward
i	ee	i	teen
j	zh	ʒ	Jaques
k	k	k	kite (only appears in unassimilated “foreign” words)
l	l	l	long
m	m	m	moat
n	n	n	nautical
o	o	o	olfactory
p	p	p	political
r	r	r	Spanish señora (with a trilled [r], but the American English [ɹ] will do in a pinch)
s	s	s	suspend
t	t	t	tank
u	oo	u	boot
v	v	v	invasion
w	w	w	western
x	ks	ks	box (even at the beginning of words)
y	y	j	yodel (never a vowel, as in byte)
z	z	z	zither

Like English, Romániço uses the letter h in combination with certain other letters to produce “husher” sounds:

ROMÁNIÇO	ENGLISH	IPA	EXAMPLE
ċ²	ch	ʧ	charming
kh	kh	x	German Achtung
sh	sh	ʃ	shore
th	th	θ or tʰ	thank (or tank, whichever’s easier)

Otherwise, each consonant should be pronounced separately, even when the same consonant is doubled:

Ordinarily, when two vowels come together in a Romániço word, each is pronounced separately. (Eg., coercer is pronounced co-er-cer.) Some vowels, however, combine with other vowels to form sounds pronounced as a single (or close to single) syllable, as in English coin and couch. These combination vowel sounds are called diphthongs.

The letters i and u, when they are not the only vowel in a root and are immediately followed by a different vowel in the same word, produce a “rising” diphthong (ex. ia, ie, io, iu, ua, ue, ui, uo).

After the letters c or g, the letter u always produces a diphthong when followed by another vowel, even another u. (Otherwise, two of the same vowel are still pronounced separately.)

The letters i and u also form the “falling” diphthongs ai, ei, oi, au, and eu, but only when following vowels in the same root:

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Tonic Stress

Generally speaking, words in Romániço are stressed on the next-to-the-last syllable, as in fortuno [for-'tu-no] and mentiono [men-'tjo-no]. The exceptions to this rule are:

• infinitive verbs, which are stressed on the last syllable (eg., parauler, “to speak”, pronounced [pa-raw-'ler]);
• prepositions made into nouns, adjectives, or adverbs, all of which keep the original stress (eg., super “over”, pronounced ['su-per], but súpera “upper”, pronounced ['su-pe-ra];
• words whose stress falls elsewhere, indicated by an acute accent mark (eg., judó, ópero, ásino, agonío).

All three cases go back to being stressed on the penultimate syllable, however, when suffixes that change the stressed vowels’ position in the words are added, reducing the original stress to secondary stress: herédito “inheritance”, but hereditanto [he-ˌre-di-'tan-to] “heir”.

These accent marks, while useful in print, need not be used in handwriting; one can write spectáculo or spectaculo, as long as one remembers to pronounce it [spek-'ta-ku-lo].

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