Pronunciation Guide
To help readers pronounce some of the more unfamiliar words, I have used the following simple respelling guide which is pretty much the same as used on dictionary.com and wikipedia. Pronunciations are in brackets after the word in the Abbey.
I could have used the IPA but to be honest most people do not know it and though very powerful, it is very convoluted.
Stresses in words are dealt with using capitals, so a racoon would be ra-KUUN and pronunciation would be prə-NUN-see-AY-shən.
Notice the use of the letter ə, which is often called a schwa. You will see in the vowel section that this is used where the vowel sound is unstressed - so very short!
Consonants | ||
ch | church, child | |
h | hat, have | |
hw | which, why | |
j | judge | |
kh | loch (Scottish), Buch (German) | |
ng | thing, ring | |
sh | ship, dish, ration, ratio | |
th | thin, thigh, beneath | |
dh | this, thy | |
y | yes, yonder | |
zh | vision, pleasure | |
b | boy, cob | |
d | dog, had | |
f | fast, off | |
g | good, dog | |
k | kitchen, cook | |
l | long, ball | |
m | money, ram | |
n | no, ton | |
p | pale, lap | |
r | rat, run, arrange | |
s | sun, pass | |
t | tall, short | |
v | value, rev | |
w | water, walk | |
z | zebra, biz | |
Vowels | ||
a | apathy, pat, lad, ran | |
ay | pay, paid, say, ablation | |
air | care, hair, there, verify | |
ah | father, palm | |
ar | arm, farther | |
e | let, head, fell | |
ee | bee, see, complete | |
i | invalid, pit, city, rabbit, garbage | |
ahy | item, pie, by, my | |
eer | pier, near, here | |
o | pot, not, wasp, hock | |
ohr | north, war, force, wore | |
oh | toe, no | |
aw | caught, paw | |
oi | noise, boy | |
uu | took, put | |
oor | tour, manure | |
oo | boot, soon, through | |
ow | out, now | |
u | cut, run, enough | |
ər | urge, term, firm, word, heard, bird, vernier, butter, winner | |
ə | about, item, gallop, circus, edible, | |
yoo | pupil, | |
oe | feu (French), schön, zwölf (German) | |
ue | tu (French), über (German) | |
o(ng) | bon (French) |