Phonology of Apatani Words

[Dear readers I am contemplating to employ following spelling schemes in this blog. Your valued suggestions and criticisms are sought before I rewrite the entire posts of the blog]

Apatani is a tone language. It is important to show distinction between different tones of vowel sounds/ syllables in words while writing them in order to avoid confusion. Various combinations of letters can be employed for the purpose.

1. While writing in Apatani all the consonants (of English alphabets) should be used similar to that in English.

2. Each vowel should represent unique vowel sound:

‘a’ as in America

‘e’ as in set, met, pet and also as in *tader /tad…r/ intestinal worm in Apatani

‘i’ as in tin, ink, sit

‘o’ as in ox, pot, lot

‘u’ as in bush, put,

‘ii’ as in *siibin /s…bin/ (goat in Apatani)

*[Vowel sounds ‘e’ as in tader and ‘ii’ as in siibin are not found in English; learners are advised to get acquainted with these vowel sounds from native speaker]

Different tones of vowel sounds and their representation in a word:

• tones of vowel sound ‘a’

‘a’ /short and level tone/ as in bar, car, tape (pumkin), tapay (leech), owpa (find something while cutting/working with spade), dane (stood)

‘aa’ /long and level / as in aami (cat in Apatani), aane (came), opaa (leave/ let off in Apatani), owpaa (cut away or remove with spade), daane (took stride, walked)

‘ah’ /short and rising/ as in miinah (busy in doing something such that doer is unaware of other than what he is doing)

• tones of vowel sound ‘i’

‘i’ /short and level/ as in pit, sit, lit, alyi (air/ wind), miibi (do on others behalf), imi (sleep), inne (walked, went)

‘ee’ /long and level/ as in see, reed, meet, alyee (arrow), eene-he (how many days) eemi (floor surrounding hearth/ fireplace where people sit or make bed in Apatani house)

‘ie’ /long and falling/ as in sieve, Barbie doll, amie (eye), alyie (pig), miibie (spill over),

‘ih’ /short and rising/ as in tihto (rub as in lighting match stick)

• tones of vowel sound ‘e’

‘e’ /short and level/ as in set, pet, tape (pumkin), ripe [throw at (me)], bipe[give (me)]

‘ay’ / long and level/ as in may, bay, day, tapay (leech), bipay (give off permanently)

‘eh’ /short and rising/ as in ripeh (stitch across, throw something), reepeh (stripe/ crack across one end to others), biepeh [flow across]

• tones of vowel sound ‘o’

‘o’ /short and level/ rot, pot, opaato (leave), gone (took hand span)

‘ow’ /long and level/ own, bow, row, mow, mow (to rotate head sideways), towto (come down), rowto (pull), rotow (spacious), gowne (flew)

‘oh’ /short and rising/ atoh (self, ones own)

• tones of vowel sound ‘u’

‘u’ as in put, bush, dune (sat), gune (scrawled), aasu [come (used with conditional)]

‘oo’ as in soon, noon, too, doone (pulled), goone (sat on egg to hatch), asoo (lazy)

‘uh’ as in asuh (grain without seed)

• tones of sound ‘ii’

‘ii’ /short and level/as in siibin (goat), miido (doing), miidow (rain), siine (died), sii (cow), anii (mother)

‘iiw’ /long and level/ as in siiwne (scratched), aniiw (leaf)

‘iih’ /short and rising/ aniih (hurry, haste)