Láadan Sampler, Part One

The sounds (phonemes) needed for pronouncing Láadan words:

a as in “father”; e as in “bell”; i as in “bit”; o as in “home”; u like “oo” in “soon”

th like “th” in “think”; zh like “s” in “pleasure”

b, sh, m, n, l, r, w, y, h, d (as in English)

lh — a sound that doesn’t exist in English, made by pressing your tongue against the roof of your mouth, drawing back the corners of your mouth as you would for a smile, and then trying to say “sh” [Always signals negative semantic content]

Tone: An accent mark over a vowel means that it has high tone. For English speakers, this means that you should give it slightly higher pitch and more emphasis, the way you would a stressed syllable.


Creatures

[From A First Dictionary and Grammar of Láadan: Second Edition]

animal, domestic — shamid
animal husbandry — ewomil
animal, wild — romid
ape — omamid
bee — zhomid
beetle — yum
bird — babí
butterfly — áalaá
camel — hibomid
cat — rul
cow — dithemid
creature — mid
dog — lanemid
earthworm — shéeba
elephant — domid
fox — dumidal
goat — éezh
insect — zhub
livestock — womil
man — withid
mule — wothemid
owl — húumid
person — with
pig — muda
rabbit — shanemid
tick — uhudemid
turtle — balinemid
woman — with

Reprinted from http://ozarque.livejournal.com/100539.html (4/18/2005) with permission.