Guaraní Alphabet - Grammatical Nomenclature

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The Guarani alphabet - Achegety

It is a form of writing based on the Latin alphabet, used


for the Guaraní language. Some letters were adapted to
the phonetic requirements of the language using
digraphs and diacritics such as the tilde ( ̃) and the acute
accent (´).
The consonants are read in Guaraní by adding the letter
"e". Ex: le, me, ne, re. Which in Spanish would be: ele,
eme, ene, ere. The exception is the consonant (put)
It consists of 33 letters, displayed in the following correlative
order :

a-á-ch-e-é-gghiT- j- k -1 - m - mb - n
- nd - ng - nt - ----------
-yy - '(put).
The letters A, E, I, O, U, Y denote six vowel sounds; The
variants with an accent are nasal. The sign similar to an
apostrophe or single quote " ꞌ " is a saltillo (its unicode point is
U+A78B for uppercase and U+A78C for lowercase) in Guaraní
it adopts the name "puesto", it represents a glottal stop. The
rest of the letters (including "Ñ", "G", and the digraphs) are
consonants.
The Latin letters B, C and D are used only as components of digraphs,
while F, Q, W, X, Z are never used. The letter L, the digraph Nt and the
digraph Rr are only used in words taken from Spanish, influenced by
the phonology of Spanish, or non-verbal onomatopoeias. The
digraph Ll is not used.
Some letters are pronounced in a particular way such as "H" which is
pronounced like "ja" and "J" which is pronounced like "ya". The
accented variants of Ẽ, Ĩ, Ũ, Ỹ, and G̃ are usually changed by a
circumflex (^), due to the inability of some sources to reproduce them.
The nasal accent is identified with the tilde (~). The nasal tilde is
replaced by the symbol (~), since in no source does it appear as an
accent for all vowels, and the consonants that have a nasal tilde were
changed in color to identify them .
Vowels (Puꞌae) : phoneme with an oral or nasal sound. There are 12
that are classified as 5 oral, 5 nasal, 1 guttural and 1 guttonasal.

^ Oral vowels (Puꞌae jurugua): A – E – I – O – U


^ Nasal vowels (Puꞌae tĩgua): Ã - Ẽ - Ĩ - Õ - Ũ
^ Guttural vowel (Puꞌae ahyꞌogua): And
^ Guttonasal vowel (Puꞌae ahyꞌotĩgua): Ỹ

Consonants (Pundie): phoneme with a modified sound.


^ Oral consonants (Pundie jurugua): CH - G - H - J - K - L - P - R -
RR. - S - T - V - Ꞌ (put)
^ Nasal consonants (Pundie tĩgua): G̃ – M – N – Ñ
^ Naso-oral consonants (Pundie tĩjurugua): Mb – Nd – Ng – Nt
In Guaraní words are divided into oral and nasal.
Nasals are those that are composed of a vowel or nasal consonant.

Ex.: akâ (head) – porâ (cute) – kuñataî (miss) – hembireko (his wife).

Oral ones are those that do not contain vowels or nasal consonants.

Ex: rajy (daughter) – túva (father) – sy (mother) – arapoty (spring).


Consonants with different sounds.

The consonant H sounds like in the English word help.


In Guaraní: hái (sour), huꞌu (cough).
The J sounds like the Spanish "ye", not as slurred. Ex:
jagua (dog), juru (mouth).
The K replaces the "C" and the "Q" in Spanish. Ex: kaꞌa
(grass), kua (hole).
The G is read as "gue" (war), and retains its sound with all
vowels. Ex: guýra (bird, bird), ange (today).
He put (ꞌ) is glottal: From "pu", sound, and "so", release or
separate. In the syllable it accompanies the vowel that
follows it. Its effect is the result of a syncopation in the
rhythm of the word.
Ex: so'o (meat), suꞌu (bite).
SYLLABLE: SO -ꞌO SU -ꞌU .
Diacritics
^ The acute accent "´" is used as in Spanish, and is called
muanduhe. The accent (muanduhe)
^ In Guaraní no word ends in a consonant and almost all have an
accent on the last vowel and are not accented (graphic accent).
^ It is written: tape: tata path: fire. And it reads: tapé tatá The
graphic accent is used when the stressed vowel is not the final
one. It is read and written: áva: hair tái: spicy.
^ The nasal consonant and he put or glottal consonant are
distinctive phonemes, their presence can give a difference in
meaning.
Examples :
Kái - Burn Ka'i -Monkey Okay - Sleep
Oke - Door

Kua - Ku Hole - Ku'a Finger - Waist


Pytu - Breath

Pyta - Heel Pytü - Dark

Pytá - Red

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