# Mirad/Orthography and Pronunciation
## Orthography and Pronunciation
### Alphabet

    The Mirad alphabet has both lower-case and upper-case letters. The alphabet has the same base letters as Latin or English, except that the letters Qq, Xx, and Yy are considered non-native and are used only in foreign names and borrowings. Also, the letters Hh and Ww are additional to Agapoff's original Unilingua alphabet and are unique in that they have no inherent semantic values; they are used for various grammatical-only purposes. A unique feature of Mirad is that every native letter is a semantically- or functionally-significant atom in the language and can be thought of as a brick in word-building. See Word-building
    The order of the native alphabet is as follows:
       a á à â b c d e é è ê f g h i í ì î j k l m n o ó ò ô p r s t u ú ù û v w z
    The above lower-case letters can also be represented as upper-case letters. In Unicode representations and indexing, the uppercase graphemes precede the lowercase values. Uppercase letters are used much as in American English, that is, for the first letter in sentences, proper nouns, etc. See #Orthography for more details. As mentioned above, the Mirad graphemes Ww and Hh are additional to the letters in the original Unilingua and are used to form the passive voice of verbs and the correlative deictics, respectively. Foreign names and borrowings sometimes also incorporate Hh, Qq, Xx, and Yy.

#### Consonants

    The following letters are classified as consonants:
       b c d f g h j k l m n p r s t v w z
* *Note: The author of Unilingua did not include the letters Hh or Ww as native graphemes. They have been added in Mirad in order to encompass word structures not included by Agapoff, in addition to interjections and foreign names. See more on this under #Vowels.

#### Vowels

    Vowels, or more accurately, vowel nuclei consist of plain vowels and iotated vowels, that is, vowels that have a y-glide sound (iota) before, after, or around them. A synonym of iotated is palatalized.
    The plain vowels are (only miniscules listed here):
       a e i o u
    The iotated vowel nuclei are:
       á é í ó ú (pre-iotated)
       à è ì ò ù (post-iotated)
       â ê î ô û (circum-iotated)
* Note: The author of Unilingua used non-Roman letters to represent some of the pre-iotated vowels (я = á, е = é, ø = ó, and ю = ú. The author employed a hacek (called ille in French) over the vowel to represent post-iotation (ă = à, ě = è, etc.). This revised Mirad textbook, however, uses the acute accent (as in French été) for the pre-iotated vowels, the grave accent (as in French père) for the post-iotated vowels, and the circumflex accent (as in French fête) for the circum-iotated vowels. It must be remembered, however, that á, ô, and other iotated vowels are considered single vowels or vowel nuclei in any analysis of the language, not dipthongs or tripthongs). In other words, the accents are merely graphemic devices to distinguish vowels qualitatively, and thereby semantically.

### Orthography
#### Punctuation

    Despite Agapoff's idiosyncratic system of punctuation, the punctuation symbols and usage in Mirad are just like those of American English.

#### Capitalization

    Capitalization in Mirad follows the same rules as in English. European learners need to be especially careful to capitalize the first letter of the names of languages, nationalities, and inhabitants, which in most European languages are left in lowercase.
    Note the following examples. The words are all capitalized because the root word is the name of the country China:
| Mirad | English |
| Kin | China |
| Kina | Chinese (people or nation) [adj.] |
| Kinad | Chinese (language) [n.] |
| Kinada | Chinese (language) [adj.] |
| Kinadè | in Chinese [adv.] |
| Kinut | Chinese person |
| Kinadaer | to speak Chinese (pronounced: kee-nah-dah-EHR) |
| Kinader | to utter in Chinese |
| Kinadrer | to write Chinese |
| Kinadrun | Chinese writing |
| Kina vidrun | Chinese calligraphy |
| Kinadéder | to read Chinese |
| Kinéna | Chinese-like [adj.] |
| Kinénà | in the Chinese way [adv.] |
| Kin-Amerika véani | Sino-American relations |
| Kinconi | things Chinese (pronounced: keen-SOH-nee) |
| Kinaser | to sinofy (pronounced: kee-nah-SHEHR) |
| Kintun | Sinology (pronounced: keen-TOON) |
| Kintuna | Sinological |
| Kintut | Sinologist |

### Pronunciation
#### Consonant sounds

    This chart shows the closest phonetic approximations of the Mirad consonant graphemes in English and some other familiar languages, along with the exact value in IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet):
| grapheme | IPA | English | American Spanish | French | Comment |
| b | b | bee | bien | bon | |
| c | s | see | hace | garçon | Watch out! Sounds like "s". |
| d | d | dog | dos | de | |
| f | f | foo | fiesta | fou | |
| g | g | goo | goma | gant | Always hard. |
| h | h | how | jota | -- | Closer to the English value. |
| j | ʒ | mirage | -- | jour | As in "Dr. Zhivago. |
| k | k | skate | casa | comment | |
| l | l | law | la | les | |
| m | m | moo | mi | mon | |
| n | n | no | no | non | |
| p | p | spoon | poco | peu | |
| r | r | -- | toro | -- | Dental flap or trill |
| s | ʃ | shed | -- | chaise | A fricative "sh" sound! |
| t | t | steak | tú | ton | |
| v | v | vie | -- | va | |
| w | w | woo | Juan | oui | |
| z | z | zoo | -- | zone | |
* Note! Be very careful that the c and the s are not pronounced as their English or European equivalents. Think of the c as being the French c cedilla (ç).

#### Simple vowel sounds

    a as in Spanish la (IPA:/a/)
    e as in French thé (IPA:/e/)
    i as in Spanish sí! (IPA:/i/)
    o as in Spanish no (IPA:/o/)
    u as in Spanish tú (IPA:/u/)

#### Pre-iotated vowel sounds

    These vowels are pronounced the same as the simple vowel above, but with a y-glide at the beginning.
    á is like ya as in English yacht
    é is like ye as in German jeder or English yes
    í is like yi as in French yippie or English ye (without the final y-glide)
    ó is like yo as in German Joga or English yo-yo (without the final w-glide)
    ú is like yu as in German Juli or English unit

#### Post-iotated vowel sounds

    These vowels are pronounced like the simple vowels, but with a y-glide at the end.
    à is like ay as in English Thai
    è is like ey as in English fey
    ì is like iy as in English see
    ò is like oy as in English boy
    ù is like uy as in English fooey

#### Circum-iotated vowel sounds

    These vowels are pronounced with a y-glide at both the beginning and end.
    â is like yay as in English yikes!
    ê is like yey as in English yea!
    î is like yiy
    ô is like yoy
    û is like yuy
* Note the difference in pronunciation between aá, which is pronounced like A-ya as in Spanish "playa", and àa, which sounds like AY-a as in English diagram.)

### Syllabification and Stress

    A closed syllable is one that ends in a consonant or a y-glide (i.e., a post- or circum-yodified vowel). A syllable consists of [C]V[C], where V, the vowel nucleus, can begin or end with a y-glide, but contain only one of the set of vowels [aeiou], and where C consists of one or two homorganic consonants, i.e. [bcdfgjknpstvz]+[lrwy].
    The rule for stress is: If a word ends in a closed syllable, then the last syllable receives the stress, otherwise, the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable receives the stress.
| spelling | pronunciation | meaning |
| gafif | ga-FIF | preference |
| ifla | I-fla | agreeable |
| ánsea | yan-SHE-a | collective |
| manà | MA-nay | with light |
| Kinadae | ki-na-DA-e | speaks Chinese |
| Kinad | ki-NAD | Chinese (language) |
| Hàfa | HAY-fa | (Israeli town of) Haifa |
| gracer | gra-SER | to be extreme |
    Every vowel in Mirad is given its full syllabic pronunciation, even when juxtaposed in what English or European speakers might consider dipthongs:
| spelling | pronunciation | meaning | syllable count |
| daea | da-E-a | speaking | 3 |
| oif | o-If | displeasure | 2 |
| daò | DA-oy | without saying | 2 |
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