Pronouncing double vowels

[Lrrtoksì nìhawng]

Kaltxì ma aylertu!

Sorry I don't post much. Usually when I have a question I find that someone else has already asked it. If I were to say something like au a-apxa would I insert an okina (not sure of the english word for this; it's like a pause) between the a and apxa, draw out the "a" sound, or just let the first "a" drop? Usually I avoid this problem by flipping the adjective to the other side of the noun but there are some words where that's just not possible.

[suomichris]

Kaltxì ma aylertu!

Sorry I don't post much. Usually when I have a question I find that someone else has already asked it. If I were to say something like au a-apxa would I insert an okina (not sure of the english word for this; it's like a pause) between the a and apxa, draw out the "a" sound, or just let the first "a" drop? Usually I avoid this problem by flipping the adjective to the other side of the noun but there are some words where that's just not possible.

There's no okina here (glottal stop is in the English term); when you have double vowels next to each other, one just gets dropped.  There is some indication that we might also see changes in the placement of stress when this happens, but we (I?) don't know for sure yet...

[NeotrekkerZ]

In the analysis of the Frommer letter post we have this little nugget of information:

He also confirmed that like vowels contract, so that the dual/trial of 'eveng 'child', where the glottal stop is lenited, would be meveng, pxeveng. I suppose we can therefore say that the genitive in all pronouns is -eyä, and that after oe the two e's coalesce.

This rule would seem to imply that "au apxa" would be the correct formulation, so you wouldn't have to worry about your okina.  But this is my interpretation of the quote above and has not been verified or ruled out by the other intermediate members.

[NeotrekkerZ]

Suomichris beat me to it.  We seem to be the night owls.

[suomichris]

Suomichris beat me to it.  We seem to be the night owls.

Heh, yeah.  I somehow think sitting in front of my computer counts as work, even if I'm just lurking around here and watching Buck Rogers...

I'm a bit concerned about the -eyä interpretation (not to go totally off-topic)... Must think about this more...

[Lrrtoksì nìhawng]

Irayo! My mouth kind of wanted to drop the "a" anyway, especially if I tried to talk fast. I just wanted to make sure that was okay. The only non-english language I'm semi-proficient at is street Hawai'ian, and dropping vowels is very very bad there.

[suomichris]

Irayo! My mouth kind of wanted to drop the "a" anyway, especially if I tried to talk fast. I just wanted to make sure that was okay. The only non-english language I'm semi-proficient at is street Hawai'ian, and dropping vowels is very very bad there.

Heheh, I figured you spoke Hawai'ian from the okina...  Normally, we don't want to drop vowels in Na'vi either, but in some cases where we have a little morpheme hitting up against a root, the little morpheme loses

[omängum fra'uti]

The trailing -e on words seems to love getting dropped any time the next word starts with a vowel.  (Listen to Frommer's reading of his letter to us - I don't think I heard a single e followed by a vowel when split across words.)

But we do have a case of a double vowel...  s<ei>i becomes seiyi.  Since the sound of "y" is very close to the sound of "i", it comes out as sort of "bouncing" the "i" sound.  If that's any sort of precedent, it MAY mean that a-apxa or apxa-a gets some extra sound slipped in between...  But I don't think it would be a "y" in that case.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

I'm a bit concerned about the -eyä interpretation (not to go totally off-topic)... Must think about this more...

Seconded.

But we do have a case of a double vowel...  s<ei>i becomes seiyi.  Since the sound of "y" is very close to the sound of "i", it comes out as sort of "bouncing" the "i" sound.  If that's any sort of precedent, it MAY mean that a-apxa or apxa-a gets some extra sound slipped in between...  But I don't think it would be a "y" in that case.

That's probably, as you say, just because i is produced in a similar part of the mouth to y. I would very much doubt it applied to any vowels except i, ì and possibly (but I think unlikely) u.

[suomichris]

That's probably, as you say, just because i is produced in a similar part of the mouth to y. I would very much doubt it applied to any vowles except i, ì and possibly (but I think unlikely) u.

But we might find places where /ua/ gets written/pronounced as /uwa/.  Definitely something to keep in mind when looking at texts...