Carne Seca
Well-Known Member
Well some of you asked for this. Get ready for a sprained tongue and serious bouts of frustration. First of all, Navajo vowels are pretty straight forward. The letter A is pronounced like the o in hot. All single vowels are short. E is pronounced like the e in let. The letter I is pronounced like the I in hit. And finally O is pronounced like the o in vote. Double vowels are long vowels. Two i's sound like the vowels in heat or meet. The others stay the same but are sounded out longer than single vowels.
As for consonants they are like English except for two exceptions. The voiceless L and the T-voiceless L combo. A voiceless L is pronounced from the side of the tongue making a hissing noise. The T-voiceless L combo is similar but a little harder to pronounce. This is the hardest to master. A lot of people make the mistake or are lazy by using a K sound. That would be wrong. The best way to pronounce it is to place your tongue like you would for a T with your tongue touching the top of your palate. ONLY. You pronounce it out of the side of your tongue like the voiceless L (I'll give some examples later on but right now I'll keep it simple).
Are you sure you still want to learn this?
O.k. the words for today will be Good Morning. The word for good is yá'át'ééh and morning is abíní.
yá'át'ééh abíní. The letters with the comma on top denotes a high tone. So any letter with the comma will go up in tone. Any letters without will have a lower tone. Here is the example:
https://vimeo.com/62017593
Sorry for the vimeo switch but flickr wouldn't upload it. I'm speaking slowly so you can hear the glottal stops and high tones. Let me know if you have problems accessing the video.
As for consonants they are like English except for two exceptions. The voiceless L and the T-voiceless L combo. A voiceless L is pronounced from the side of the tongue making a hissing noise. The T-voiceless L combo is similar but a little harder to pronounce. This is the hardest to master. A lot of people make the mistake or are lazy by using a K sound. That would be wrong. The best way to pronounce it is to place your tongue like you would for a T with your tongue touching the top of your palate. ONLY. You pronounce it out of the side of your tongue like the voiceless L (I'll give some examples later on but right now I'll keep it simple).
Are you sure you still want to learn this?
O.k. the words for today will be Good Morning. The word for good is yá'át'ééh and morning is abíní.
yá'át'ééh abíní. The letters with the comma on top denotes a high tone. So any letter with the comma will go up in tone. Any letters without will have a lower tone. Here is the example:
https://vimeo.com/62017593
Sorry for the vimeo switch but flickr wouldn't upload it. I'm speaking slowly so you can hear the glottal stops and high tones. Let me know if you have problems accessing the video.
