0. Phonology and Spelling

Kokanu's phonology tries to stay minimal and globally accessible. It has 11 consonants and 5 vowels:

p, t, k, c, w, l, j, m, n, s, h

a, i, e, o, u

The phonological inventory and phonotactics is restrained so that every sound remains relatively easy to pronounce for most speakers of most languages around the world. Kokanu allows a large amount of flexibility in how sounds are pronounced in order to make it as easy as possible to speak for all people, regardless of native language.

If you want to jump straight into speaking, scroll down to Examples and give them a try!

Pronunciation

The consonants are pronounced like this:

m — like in map
n — like in nice
p — like in pan
t — like in town
k — like in king
s — like in sit
c — like in chat
h — like in happy
l — like in left
j — like in yes
w — like in we

The vowels are pronounced like this:

i — like in see
e — like in dress
a — like in cat
o — like in thought (in non-North American dialects) and like in moat (in North American dialects)
u — like in boot

For people familiar with it, read up on the IPA symbols below.

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

Each letter has a preferred IPA value, but variation is allowed. In general, Kokanu phonotactics is strict, while its allophony is lax:

⟨m⟩ – [m]
⟨n⟩ – [n]
⟨p⟩ – [p]
⟨t⟩ – [t]; [d] allowed
⟨k⟩ – [k]; [g] allowed
⟨s⟩ – [s]; [ʃ], [z], and [ʒ] allowed
⟨c⟩ – [t͡ʃ]; [t͡s] and [d͡ʒ] allowed
⟨h⟩ – [h]; [x], [ʁ], [ʔ], [∅], etc. allowed
⟨l⟩ – [l]
⟨j⟩ – [j]
⟨w⟩ – [w]; [v], [β], and [ʋ] allowed
⟨i⟩ – [i]; [ɪ] allowed
⟨e⟩ – [e̞]; [e] and [ɛ] allowed
⟨a⟩ – [ä]; [a], [ɑ], [æ], and [ɐ] allowed
⟨o⟩ – [o̞]; [o] and [ɔ] allowed
⟨u⟩ – [u]; [ʊ], [ɯ], and [ʉ] allowed

This is by no means a complete list of what allophony is acceptable. In general, if it can distinguish a minimal pair without creating ambiguity, then it's acceptable.

Some vowel or consonant pairs that sound very similar across languages are never used to distinguish words in the Kokanu dictionary.

Stress

Correct stress is not required to be understood, but it is recommended to stress the first syllable of a word.

peko — PEH-ko meaning hello/bye/please/thank you/sorry
mani — MAH-ni meaning money

Phonotactics

Valid syllables in Kokanu:

(C)V (consonant optional)
(C)VN (final n optional)

There are no consonant clusters and no final consonants other than n.

All possible syllables

	i	e	a	o	u	in	en	an	on	un
(none)	i	e	a	o	u	in	en	an	on	un
m	mi	me	ma	mo	mu	min	men	man	mon	mun
n	ni	ne	na	no	nu	nin	nen	nan	non	nun
p	pi	pe	pa	po	pu	pin	pen	pan	pon	pun
t	ti	te	ta	to	tu	tin	ten	tan	ton	tun
k	ki	ke	ka	ko	ku	kin	ken	kan	kon	kun
s	si	se	sa	so	su	sin	sen	san	son	sun
c	ci	ce	ca	co	cu	cin	cen	can	con	cun
h	hi	he	ha	ho	hu	hin	hen	han	hon	hun
l	li	le	la	lo	lu	lin	len	lan	lon	lun
j		je	ja	jo	ju		jen	jan	jon	jun
w	wi	we	wa	wo		win	wen	wan	won

Warning

ji, jin, wu, and wun are invalid syllables to avoid difficulties in pronunciation.

Examples

Here are some Kokanu words borrowed from English. They’re not identical to English pronunciation, but they keep it close enough to feel familiar:

Kokanu	Meaning	Notes
po	for	Sounds like POH /po/ — p instead of f, and no r
tati	tight	Like TAH-tee /ˈtɑ.ti/ — final i is pronounced separately
kemika	chemical	KEH-mee-kah /ˈke.mi.kɑː/ — no -l ending
wan	one	Same as English WAHN /wan/
mani	money	Same as English MAH-nee /ˈma.ni/
no	no	Like English NOH /no/ — short, single vowel, no diphthong
sin	thing	Like English SEEN /sin/ (not thing)
he	hey	HEH /he/ — plain vowel, no diphthong
oke	okay	OH-keh /o.ke/ — two clean syllables

Warning

A word's meaning in Kokanu might slightly differ from its original meaning. oke, for example, in its base form means "to accept" not "okay".