Spelling and pronunciation
Panglo is phonetic in two directions:
- When you read a word, you can always pronounce it.
- When you hear a word, you can almost always write it. (Foreign names can be an exception.)
Once you have learned the few rules and the way letters are pronounced, you can read Panglo aloud and be understood.
Basic Latin Alphabet
Panglo is written in the basic Latin alphabet – the same as English! It doesn't have any of the accented letters, which are different from language to language. So it can be typed, printed and used with computers and smart devices in most countries without any difficulty.
A B C Ch D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S Sh T U V W X Y Z
A specialty of the Panglo writing system is that every consonant letter by itself includes a short mid central vowel sound unless otherwise specified. (In this regard Panglo's writing system works like those of India.) This short vowel sound is called schwa, and it is the most basic vowel sound that can be created without much effort. It is like the a in English career /kərir/ or sofa /soufə/. A consonant's schwa can also be silent and it can be replaced by any written vowel. Therefore for example did can be pronounced /did/ or /didə/ but didi is always pronounced /didi/.
Note on phonetic notation
In this page, we use the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to show pronunciation in writing. We use square brackets and slashes to show that we're talking about a sound and not a letter.
Physical speech sounds are written between square brackets,
for example [r] and [ɹ] indicate two different r-sounds, the trill and the glide.
However, [r] and [ɹ] are not distinguished in Panglo, but they are perceived as one sound.
These mental sounds or phonemes can cover several physical sounds and are written between slashes.
So, speakers of Panglo perceive mentally always one sound, /r/, regardless of which physical sound, [r] or [ɹ], is actually heard.
It is said that Panglo has the phoneme /r/, which has alternative physical pronunciations [r] and [ɹ].
This can be annotated /r/ = [r] ~ [ɹ].
Sounds
Panglo has its own sound system and its own spelling system that are mostly similar to those of the languages of continental Europe and Latin America.
The complete speech sound inventory of Panglo is presented in the table below.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops | b p | t d | ch j | k g | |
| Fricatives | f v | s z | sh | h | |
| Nasals | m | n | ng | ||
| Lateral | l | ||||
| Trill | r | ||||
| Semivowels | w | y | |||
| --------------- | ------- | ------- | ------- | ------- | ------- |
| High vowels | u | i | |||
| Mid vowels | o | ə | e | ||
| Low vowels | a | ||||
| Back | Central | Front |
Vowels
Panglo has six oral vowels. They are represented by the five vowel letters A, E, I, O and U in the writing system, where E represents both /e/ and /ə/.
| Panglo | IPA | Pronunciation advise |
|---|---|---|
| A | /a/ | As in father. |
| E | /e/ | As in bet when it is in accented syllable. |
| E | /ə/ | As in happen when it is in unaccented syllables. |
| I | /i/ | As in machine. |
| O | /o/ | As in or. |
| U | /u/ | As in rule. |
There are also several common vowel sequences – au, ou, ai, ei, oi – which are pronounced as the consecutive vowels with or without a hiatus in between.
Consonants
Panglo has 21 consonant sounds. They are represented in the writing system by 19 Latin letters and their combinations.
| Panglo | IPA | Pronunciation advise |
|---|---|---|
| B | /b/ | |
| C | /ts/ | Like ts in bits or alternatively like c in city. |
| Ch | /tʃ/ | Always like ch in chat. |
| D | /d/ | |
| F | /f/ | |
| G | /g/ | Always hard as in get. Never soft as in gel. |
| H | /h/ | |
| J | /dʒ/ | Always like J in judge_ or the soft g in gel. |
| K | /k/ | |
| L | /l/ | |
| M | /m/ | |
| N | /n/ | |
| P | /p/ | |
| R | /r~ɹ/ | Always voiced as in American English. Can be trilled as in Indian English. Never silent! |
| S | /s/ | Always voiceless like s in sister. |
| Sh | /ʃ/ | Like sh in shop. |
| T | /t/ | |
| V | /v/ | Like v in vet or, also commonly, like w in wet. |
| W | /w/ | Like w in wet or, also commonly, like v in vet. |
| X | /ks/ | |
| Y | /j/ | Like y in yes. |
| Z | /z/ |
External letters and sounds
There are also additional letters and letter-combinations, which can be used only in external words, which do not belong to the common Panglo vocabulary, like names of specific places and individual people. They are not used in any common Panglo words.
| Panglo | IPA | Pronunciation advise |
|---|---|---|
| Kh | /x/ | Voiceless velar fricative, like ch in Loch in Scottish. |
| Gh | /ɣ/ | Voiced velar fricative |
| Ph | /ɸ/ | Voiceless bilabial fricative |
| Bh | /β/ | Voiced bilabial fricative |
| Q | /q/ | Voiceless uvular stop |
| Qh | /χ/ | Voiceless uvular fricative |
| Rh | /ʀ~ʁ/ | Voiced uvular trill or fricative like rh in rhume in Parisian French. |
| Th | /θ/ | Like th in thing. |
| Dh | /ð/ | Like th in they. |
| Zh | /ʒ/ | Like z in azure. |
The additional letters and digraphs are used locally. Their purpose is to help to transfer names in local languages to the international language, so that local people can recognize them. It's OK if you don't know how to pronounce any of these sounds. Just pronounce the first letter and ignore the H.
For example, the capital of Greece is called "Αθήνα" /aθina/ in the local language, Greek. The Panglo version of this name is "Athina". It can be pronounced either /aθina/ (as the Greek do) or /atina/ (in the simplified international accent). We want to preserve the sound of this word as much as possible, but we can't use any of the non-Latin letters, so it becomes "Athina" in Panglo.
Examples:
Athina Athens (the capital of Greece)
Khartum Khartoum (the capital of Sudan)
Rhone Rhône (a river in France and Switzerland)
Rhein Rhine (a river that flows through Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein, Germany, France and the Netherlands)
Word Structure
Panglo words are structurally rather simple. A syllable can include in maximum:
- one initial consonant
- one liquid consonant (L or R)
- one or two vowels, and
- one final consonant from the following: M, N, NG, L, R, F, S, and SH.
Some of the heaviest words in practice are kristal and simple.
In addition, the following middle consonant groups are allowed: -kn-, -ks-, -tn- and -tm-. They are found in a handful of loan words from Greek and Latin, like tekne (technique), axe (axis), etne (ethnicity) and ritme (rhythm).
Adapting Loan Words
As a general rule, loan words are adapted to the phonetic spelling system of Panglo. This rule is applied to both common words and proper names.
Common words
A common word refers to a thing as a member of a group, not as an individual. For example dog is a common word but Mutt is not, it is a proper name.
Common words, which are in general use, must fit into the normal word structure, and they can include only the normal sounds of Panglo.
Panglo doesn't have the TH sounds that exist in English, so they are usually realized as T and D in words that are borrowed from English. For example di ('the'), de ('they'), tri ('three'), and ting ('thing').
Proper names
Infrequently used common nouns and proper nouns can be more complex than ordinary words, and they can include external sounds that don't belong to the normal sound inventory of Panglo.
For example, family name Smith may remain Smith in Panglo, although it is structurally more complex than common Panglo words, and it has the external TH sound.
Large and small letters
Both large and small letters (i.e. upper-case and lower-case letters) are used in writing Panglo.
Large letters are used in two situations: to begin a proper name, and to represent a name or another word with only the initial letter.
The first word of sentences is not capitalized.
Proper names
Personal names and other proper names are capitalized mostly in the same way as in English. For example Thomas Stearns Eliot is written Tomas Sternz Eliot in Panglo, and it can be abbreviated to initial letters variously Tomas S Eliot, TS Eliot and TSE.
In titles of artistic works, like books, songs and films, every word begins with a large letter. For example, Di Senyer Of Di Ring (The Lord of the Rings).
Acronyms
Initialisms, like ASEAN, EU, NAFTA and UN, are always written in large letters. Other acronyms may use a mixture of large and small letters, like for example GULag, which is an acronym of the Russian words "Glavnoye Upravleniye Lagerey".
Capital letters are also used in the standard international acronyms. For example: 10 Mb (ten megabit), 100 GB (hunde gigabait), 2 mm (due milimitre), 1 kJ (un kilojul).
Syllabification
[-] Words may be divided into syllables with a hyphen. The hyphen is placed between spoken syllables. For example: bus, ka-fe, yu-mor, pos-te, a-me-ri-ka-nis-me.
Punctuation
« . » All kinds of sentences may end with a full stop.
« ? » Questions may end alternatively with a question mark.
« ! » Exclamation mark indicates loudness or emphasis.
« ... » Three dots (i.e. ellipsis) indicates incompleteness or uncertainty.
« : » Colon indicates the beginning of an explanation, quotation or list.
« , » Comma indicates a small pause or separation between clauses or listed items.
Because the first word of sentences is not capitalized, a space may be inserted before and after the punctuation mark that ends the sentence. This practice helps to put sentences clearly apart.
(1) halo! yu gud, he? mi wan go to bazar. yu wan kom wit mi, he?
(2) halo ! yu gud, he ? mi wan go to bazar. yu wan kom wit mi, he ?
In informal texts, smileys, emoticons and emojis may be used like punctuation marks to end sentences but in addition they indicate the mood of the speaker. For example :) indicates happiness and :( indicates sadness.
mi love yu :)
– I love you.
yu no love mi :(
– You don't love me.