What does Wendat sound like?

So what does Wendat sound like? Wendat has:

• 10 consonants (like d, f, t, k, p)
• 6 vowels (like, a, e, i, o , u)
• The diacritic / ¨/: marks a sound separated into two syllables or a sound make with the preceding vowel
• The diacritic   / ‘/: marks pre- or post-aspiration or glottalization 

There are actually some sounds in Wendat that we don't have in English! For example! 

The Glottal Stop /Ɂ/

• What makes this sound weird to us is because it can occur anywhere in a word; typically in English, this is not that case.
• This can be found in the IPA chart given below!

Nasal + Stop /nd/

• This sound does not exist in the English language
• Try to connect a /n/ with a /d/ and you will get that /nd/ sound! 

Very Voiceless /h/

• This is described as very airy sound made with very narrow closures in the back are of your mouth. If it helps, the IPA chart demonstrates what a voiceless /h/ sounds like as well. 

(Words of the Wendat language - http://www.letrocdesidees.ca/ ) 

(Lagarde 35-55)

If you are super confused by the linguistic-y terms, this link will take you to an IPA chart where you can actually hear these sounds!
http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/charts/IPAlab/IPAlab.htm 

If you are still confused, the First Nations website also does an awesome job of presenting audio files for their native languages.
http://www.firstvoices.com/en/Huronne-Wendat-EN/welcome

önenh,
Students of LIN458

Contributors:
Sarah
Michael
Joseph
Asma
Chen