Wikibooks: Quechua/Pronunciation

• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Subjects: inuktitut
• Online Access: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Quechua/Pronunciation

This Module is part of the [[Quechua]] Because Quechua was only recently transcribed into a Latin alphabet it does not suffer from non phonetic spellings like English instead what you see is what you say. In this course we will use the Quechua writing system as approved by the Peruvian government in 1985. =Vowels= There are only three vowel phonemes in Quechua / i / (front close unrounded) / a / (central open unrounded) / u / (back close rounded) forming a triangular system with two degrees of openness (open and close). In contrast Spanish has a 5 vowel triangular system (i e a o u) with three degrees of openness (open mid and close). Note this means that e and o are phonemic in Spanish but not in Quechua where they are merely allophonic variants of /i/ and /u/ this is because those vowels contrast and distinguish words in Spanish so in Spanish it makes sense to spell them differently but this is not true for Quechua where the choice of [i]/[e] and of [u]/[o] is determined purely by the phonetic environment in which the phonemes /i/ and /u/ appear and not by meaning. Strange as it may seem to Westerners to have so few vowels and to not distinguish e and o as independent vowels Quechua vowel system is far from rare or unique as several other languages from different parts of the world such as Classical Arabic and Inuktitut feature analogous 3 vowel systems. = Consonants = Most Quechuan consonants are similar to their English counterparts however some people may have trouble with s. For loanwords Quechua can use b c (as in j am ) d f g x (as in kh an) and z (as in th row). BookCat