Vowels • is a
low back unrounded vowel; before in a final syllable it becomes close to in English 'gse'. • is a
mid-central unrounded vowel; pronounced like in the English word 'labl'; occurs only in the middle of a word between consonants. • , pronounced like in the English word 'nd', occurs in only three words, where it is the initial segment–– 'which', 'who' and 'a spear'. • is a lower-high
front vowel; normally pronounced between the English words 'pt' and 'pt', it varies between the high front tense vowel and the mid front lax vowel . • is a higher mid-back vowel pronounced like in the English word 'pke'; however, some speakers pronounce it like . • is a rounded
nasalized vowel. Historically, it was common for speakers to drop between vowels and to drop before the nasal vowel .
Consonants Western Abenaki has 18 consonant sounds in total. In Western Abenaki there is a distinction between
fortis consonants (always voiceless and aspirated) represented as , and
lenis consonants (
voiced between
resonants, voiceless in word-initial and word-final positions and before a fortis consonant, unaspirated but become aspirated when they close a strongly accented syllable, which includes all final syllables) represented as . The lenis consonants generally exist between vowels and at the end of words but rarely next to each other or at the beginning of words. • is a
bilabial stop, tense, voiceless, unaspirated, and long in all positions; it is similar to the combined sounds of English ending a word and beginning the next, like in 'stoayment'. • is a lax
bilabial stop; between it is voiced and pronounced like in the English word 'habit'; beginning a word it is voiceless and pronounced like a weak English but unaspirated; at the end of a word it is voiceless and made long by the stress assigned on the final syllable. • is a tense
apico-alveolar stop that is always voiceless and long, longer than the English , similarly to the Western Abenaki . • is a lax
apico-alveolar stop that is voiced between
resonants and pronounced like in English word 'boy'; at the start of a word it is voiceless and pronounced like a weak English but unaspirated; at the end of a word is it voiceless and made long and tense by the stress assigned on the final syllable, pronounced like in English 'hi'. • is a tense,
dorso-velar stop, long, voiceless and unaspirated in all positions and pronounced like in English word 'sore'. • is a lax
velar stop; between resonants is it pronounced like in English 'ao'; beginning a word it is pronounced like a weak unaspirated ; at the end of a word it is voiceless and made long and tense by the stress assigned on the final syllable, pronounced like English in 'sore'. • is a tense
apico-alveolar affricate that is voiceless in all positions and pronounced by most speakers like /ts/ in English 'hats'. • is an
apico-alveolar affricate pronounced between
resonants like the in English word 'ae'; at the start of a word it is pronounced like in the English word 'le'; at the end of a word it is pronounced like the in 'ha'. • It is important to note that historically Western Abenaki speakers varied in the ways they pronounced the
alveolar affricate phonemes and . More than half of the population pronounced them as and respectively, while the rest pronounced them as and . • is a tense
alveolar fricative that is always voiceless and long, much like the English in all positions. • is a lax
alveolar fricative that is voiced, and between resonants is pronounced like English ; voiceless when it is at the beginning of a word, both voiceless and long when it is at the end of a word. • occurs only before a vowel or and is pronounced like in English word 'heel', 'hat', or 'hit'; lax consonants before it become voiceless; when is it between vowels it is usually dropped by speakers in most words. • is a
bilabial nasal
sonorant pronounced in all positions like English . • is an
apico-alveolar sonorant pronounced in all positions like English . • is a lateral sonorant; it is pronounced with a lot of tongue tension and is influenced by the vowel which follows it, or, in syllable-final position, by the vowel that precedes it. • is a high front non-syllabic with a similar sound to but is pronounced before a vowel with greater tongue tension than . • is a
mid-back rounded non-syllabic with a similar sound to ; occurs before or after a vowel; at the end of a word after or it becomes a
voiceless fricative.
Stress Stress within words in Western Abenaki is based on an alternating stress rule: • Stress is initially assigned to the final syllable and then to every other syllable from right to left. Yet this assignment skips the vowel and falls to the next syllable, even if the
nucleus of that syllable is also . In fact, the presence of the unstressed results instead in a lengthening of the preceding consonant and the vowel is often deleted in writing and rapid speech. • Personal prefixes , , are not stressed, thus in words containing these prefixes, the stress shift will
not occur on the syllable to the right. As of 2004, linguists are unsure if a minimum syllable count is present in order for a word to be stressed. Stress within sentences: • In a
declarative sentence, the pitch goes from high-low. • Questions have a low-high pitch at the end of the sentence, yet the entire sentence is generally said with a higher pitch. • Stressed syllables that exist in the middle of a sentence tend to be pronounced at a standard pitch level. When a word is pronounced on its own, its stressed final syllable is typically high pitched. However, this is not necessarily characteristic of the specific word, because as stated above, declarative sentences end on a low pitch. == Orthography ==