Neelan Phonology

Neelan is a highly phonetic language — to pronounce a word, you simply pronounce each letter one by one as they appear. There are no silent letters or irregular pronunciation patterns.

Neelan uses several diacritical marks and special characters:

Neelan has five basic vowels, each with short, long, and elongated forms:

The asterisk (*) represents the schwa or "blank" vowel:

When multiple vowels appear together, each is pronounced separately — there are no diphthongs:

Most consonants are pronounced similarly to English, with these key differences:

Neelan has several unique consonant sounds:

Double consonants represent single sounds and should ideally be written with underlines:

Note: Digraphs are always pronounced as single units and cannot be split across syllable boundaries.

While consonant clusters are generally allowed, they're often simplified in compound words:

These simplifications follow natural phonetic principles and are usually predictable.

Stress almost always falls on the first syllable of a word:

Language names are stressed on the final syllable (-an):

In longer words, stress alternates: primary → unstressed → secondary → unstressed

This pattern can result in stress falling on affixes when they occupy the appropriate position in the rhythm.

Some suffixes can receive stress when the alternating pattern places them in stressed positions:

Neelan uses punctuation marks as phonetic elements:

When a colon precedes a vowel, it's pronounced as schwa + 'l' (but the 'l' isn't written):

General articulatory features of Neelan:

• Reduced air flow: Most consonants are pronounced with less exhalation than in English
• Clear articulation: Each sound is pronounced distinctly
• No reduction: Unstressed vowels maintain their full quality

All nouns begin with capital letters, but this does not affect pronunciation in any way.

Practice these Neelan words to master the pronunciation system: