Lutsi Pronunciation and Orthography

This section describes the practical orthography I have designed for writing Lutsi. Vowel length, as in Latvian and Latgalian, is marked with a macron (-) written over the lengthened vowel (e.g., ā, ȳ, ǖ). A long consonant is written by doubling that consonant (e.g., tt, kk, ļļ).

As in Latvian and Latgalian, palatalized consonants are written with a palatalization mark (,) under the palatalized consonant (for example, nāņe ‘woman’, maŗa ‘berry’, taļvine ‘wintery’). In non-initial syllables, consonants preceding i, are palatalized in general and therefore palatalization is not marked for consonants in that position. So, pini ‘dog’ is pronounced as if it were written piņi. This is done just to keep the Lutsi writing system clear of too many diacritical marks

It should be noted that for some Lutsi speakers, palatalization also occurred sporadically for consonants preceding other front vowels or even front vowels in general (in Lutsi, these are the long and short forms of i, e, ä, ö, ü).

The vowel ä is pronounced like ‘a’ in ‘cat’. The vowel y is usually pronounced like Estonian õ. The vowels ö and ü are pronounced like ö and ü in Estonian or German. The consonants š and ž are pronounced like ‘sh’ in ‘shoe’ and ‘z’ in ‘azure’, respectively, while tš is pronounced like ‘ch’ in ‘church’. The consonant q represents a glottal stop. In English, a glottal stop is the short break between the two syllables in “uh oh”.

The consonants b, d, f, g, h, k, m, n, p, s, t, v, z are all pronounced as in English. The consonant g is always pronounced as ‘g’ in ‘got’.

The consonant l is velarized when it occurs before central and back vowels (a, o, u, y). Variations on velarized l or “hard l” occur in Russian and Latvian and especially the Russian l can serve as a guide for how to pronounce the Lutsi l in this position.

Word stress is not marked on words. As in other Finnic languages and also in Latvian, primary stress in Lutsi is generally on the first syllable. An important exception is negated verbs. In these verbs (e.g., ole-eiq ‘is not’ and    anna-as ‘did not give’) the negative enclitic is stressed rather than the first syllable of the verb.