| VOWELS | |||
|
Maliseet Letter |
English Example |
Maliseet Example |
English Translation |
| a | father | ahahs | horse |
| e | bed | epit | sitting |
| eh | tack | ehpit | woman |
| i | machine | imi | pray |
| o | apron | opos | tree, stick |
| u | dune | uten | town |
| BLENDS | |||
|
Maliseet Letter |
English Example |
Maliseet Example |
English Translation |
| aw | how | awt | road |
| ew | * | new | four |
| iw | few | lamiw | within |
| ay | pie | sepay | this morning |
| ey | grey | piksey | pork |
| (* The sound of ew is lick the sound of e (bed) plus the sound of u (dune) said together in sequence.) | |||
|
CONSONANTS The letters h, l, m, n, w and y have the same sounds as in English; the letter h is pronounced before a vowel, silent or just barely heard before a consonant. The other consonants are pronounced as follows. | ||
|
Maliseet- Passamaquoddy Letter |
When not next to a consonant, except initial n- with the meaning "I/me/my; we/us/our"* has soft sound, like English letter.... | When next to another consonant or next to apostrophe, has hard sound, like English.... |
| c | j | ch |
| k | g | k |
| p | b | p |
| q | gw | kw |
| s | z | s |
| t | d | t |
| (*For example: nsipum ['n-ZEEB-oom] "my private spot." In this word the n- means "my.") | ||
|
APOSTROPHE Apostrophe (') indicates a missing initial consonant that used to be pronounce in an older form of the word. It is written only before c, k, p, q, s, and t. |
