Lesson 1 — Sounds and spelling
Baslamo's alphabet consists of 19 letters; 14 consonants and 5 vowels:
p, t, k, b, d, g, f, s, x, v, l, j, m, n
a, i, u, e, o
Sounds
The unique thing about Baslamo is that its sounds are able to be pronounced a variety of ways. Most are pronounced the same as in English:
- p, t, k — like in pay, take, king
- b, d, g — like in bay, darn, game
- f — like in famous
- m, n — like in morning, noon
- a — like in cat or father
- i — like in teeth or bit
- u — like in tooth or foot
- e — like in bet
- o — like in oh
Never pronounce vowels as an 'uh' sound, like in but!
A couple are pronounced sometimes like in English, but with some variations:
- s — like in sat, but also like think, that, and zap
- v — like in vine, but also like wine
- l — like in lake, but also like rake
And the last two are pronounced much differently than in English:
- x — like in church or jump
- j — like in year
Stress
Baslamo has no contrasting stress; there's no difference between words like permit versus permit, like in English. Generally, any syllable can be stressed.
Examples
We'll look at a few words in Baslamo and how to pronounce them:
| Baslamo | Meaning | Pronunciation |
|---|---|---|
| jati | speak | YAH-tee |
| kitap | book | KEE-tahp |
| salam | person | SAH-lahm, SAH-rahm |
| un | one | OON |
| xeba | sit | CHEH-bah, JEH-bah |
| neja | thanks! | NEH-yah |
| din | place | DEEN |
| fas | make | FAHS, FAHZ |
| ven | warm | WEHN, VEHN |
| taga | day | TAH-gah |
Capitalization and punctuation
In Baslamo, there is no capitalization whatsoever; not at the beginning of sentences, in places, or names. To get rid of ambiguity, one can choose to wrap a proper name in what are called guillemets, like so:
- ‹sami› li til ‹belin›. — "Sami is going to Berlin."
You can also write it without the guillemets.
- sami li til belin. — "Sami is going to Berlin."
Beyond that, Baslamo uses other punctuation, like question marks, exclamation points, periods, and commas,
- imut sin! — "Good to see you!"
- ka me kan e lel? — "Can I have it?"
- me kisa, ga lel li u. — "I think that he's there."
as well as hyphens for some compounds.
- te sa no til ugal-lot ka? — "Will you go by train?"
- me gida e kesek-gida. — "I live in an apartment."