Alphabet

The following letters and special symbols are used in most of the modern research on Kashaya.

a a· b c cʰ cʼ d e e· f h i i· k kʰ kʼ l m n o o· p pʰ pʼ q qʰ qʼ r s sʼ š t tʰ tʼ ṭ ṭʰ ṭʼ u u· w y ʔ

The Kashaya-to-English part of the online dictionary is arranged alphabetically according to this order. At the very end of the ordering are some special symbols that only occur with a few grammatical items ( · ʼ Ø ˆ ˇ ˉ ). These can be ignored by most users.

This is the usual order of the English alphabet, with the modified letters š and ṭ right after plain s and t. For consonants that can be aspirated or ejective (see below), those versions occur in that order after the plain letter, as in t tʰ tʼ ṭ ṭʰ ṭʼ. Some letters, such as g and z, are not used in Kashaya so they don't appear in the list. The letters f and r occur in borrowed words (mostly from Spanish) and so they do appear in the list. The vowels a e i u can be found as the first sound only in suffixes that start with a vowel, but they always end up preceded by a consonant in the full word. There are no suffixes in Kashaya that start with o, so that letter does not begin any entries.

Because the sounds of Kashaya are very different from those of English, we need these special symbols to make the right pronunciation clear. Although these are unfamiliar to most people, they were adopted by Robert Oswalt following the tradition of most linguists who have studied the native languages of North America. For practice in hearing the sounds represented by the symbols, listen to the audio on the Kashaya Sounds page, and also the words available on the Kashaya Online website.

Vowels

The five vowels a i e o u are pronounced as in languages like Spanish, not as they sometimes are in English (which has much more erratic spellings of vowels). There are no silent vowels in Kashaya.

All the vowels can be short or long. When accompanied by a raised dot, a· i· e· o· u·, the vowel should be dragged out. It's a bit like the difference between English bid and bead, or look and loon, but the difference is mainly how long you say the vowel rather than the way your tongue and lips are positioned, which is the case in English.

Consonants

Some consonants are quite similar to English: b d f h l m n r s w y. Many others do require more comment.

The spelling š is not used in English but the sound is the same as sh. Since it is a single sound, not two in a row, linguists usually choose a single letter to represent it, rather than a digraph (two letters interpreted as one sound). The same is true for c, a single letter used to write what is spelled ch in English.

The letter ʔ is like a question mark without the dot underneath, but represents a specific sound that often occurs also in English, called a glottal stop. This is common when English speakers say a word like uh-oh; the little "catch" in the throat before the oh is basically the same as in the Kashaya word hoʔo, which means "tooth". Every word of Kashaya that seems to start with a vowel actually starts with this sound, so the most accurate spelling includes this symbol. Thus the word for "I" sounds like ah, but because it has the glottal stop at the beginning, it's written ʔa. In English we usually pronounce words like ah with a glottal stop anyway, so that should be pretty easy to say, but in Kashaya it's also written.

Now we come to some special sounds of Kashaya. Consonants that involve completely stopping the flow of air are called stops. We have these in English in sounds like p t k. Kashaya has lots of these sounds, and some special distinctions among them. Here they all are at once, and then some, with the technical terms used to describe them.

The rows in this table refer to what linguistics call Place of Articulation. The consonants in the series written p c k are pronounced at the same place in the mouth as English p ch k, but the others require special comment.

There are two kinds of t-sounds, written plain t and ṭ with a dot underneath. This is an important distinction in Kashaya; the closest comparison to English is that plain t, pronounced with the front part of the tongue up against the back of the teeth, is somewhat like our sound th, except that it is a stop like t (cutting off the airflow) rather than a fricative like th (which allows the air to continue to flow during the consonant). The dotted ṭ is more like a regular t in English, with the tip of the tongue touching the top of the mouth a bit behind the teeth. These are best learned by listening to a native speaker and practicing.

The remaining special letter is q which is a uvular stop. The uvula is the little thing dangling down in the back of the throat, and this consonant is made by raising the very back of the tongue up to the area of the uvula to make a closure. It's like k but further back, which makes a distinctive sound. Again, it's best to listen to a native speaker to get the hang of it.

The three columns in the table are for different ways of releasing the consonant. For instance, the plain p is similar to English p but without a puff of air (called "aspiration") after it as in English pin; it's more like spin, where it doesn't have that aspiration. But when we write the raised h as in pʰ, then there is a strong puff of air, like pin but even more strongly aspirated. These are different sounds in Kashaya, so it's important to pay attention to this little ʰ in order to get the right pronunciation. This is true for all the different places of articulation (every row).

Finally, the "ejectives" in the last column, such as pʼ, are very distinctive sounds found in many Native languages from California to the Northwest (and elsewhere). They're formed by building up significant air pressure in the mouth by raising the larynx before releasing the stop, which gives them a kind of popping sound. You can learn to pronounce these by producing a plain stop immediately followed by a glottal stop, and then moving them closer together until they merge into one sound.

The last sound not mentioned yet is sʼ, which is an ejective version of s. It often sounds like ts but also with the same popping sound when it's released.