The Thalnom Roywa were written in Anneo Allomonnan’s native Mawkan dialect, an earlier form of which would have been spoken by the majority of the stories’ casts. All names are rendered in their romanised Mawkan forms; these should be broadly transparent to the English speaker, but points of particular note are detailed below.
Consonants
- Double consonants are typically pronounced only once. The exceptions to this are ‹mm, nn›, which represent lengthened [mː, nː] when they occur at the end of a word, and ‹pp, tt, kk›, which represent the clusters [ʔp, ʔt, ʔk].
- Before ‹k, g›, ‹n› is realised as [ŋ], as in English sink, single.
- ‹y› represents the approximant [j], as in English yes, hey.
- The sequences ‹ty, dy› are traditionally pronounced [tj, dj], but they may be coalesced to [t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ], as is the case in tune and dune in non-yod-dropping varieties of English.
- ‹th› always represents [θ], as in English thigh, wreath.
- ‹dh› always represents its voiced counterpart [ð], as in English thy, wreathe.
- ‹h› is only used in the digraphs ‹th, dh›, and never represents the [h] of English help.
Vowels
- All vowels are pronounced.
- The monophthongs ‹e, a, o› exhibit regular allophony, altering their quality and length depending on the phonetic environment. However, they may be approximated with the vowels of English pit/pet, pat, and put/pot.
- Where ‹a› appears before ‹m, n, r, l›, it is closer to the vowel of part.
- The diphthongs ‹ey, ay, oy› are akin to those of hey, hi, and hoy.
- The diphthongs ‹aw, ow› are akin to those of now and know.
- ‹ew› is the [ɛ] of English pet, followed by [w].
- The sequences ‹ea, eo, oe, oa› are equivalent to the sequences ‹eya, eyo, owe, owa›, and never represent diphthongs.
Stress
- Stress is predominantly lexical, however sequences of more than two unstressed syllables are not permitted within a word. As such, there is a strong preference for predictable, alternating stress patterns.
- In given names of two syllables, the first syllable is always stressed, and the second is unstressed, as in Thálo, Knále, with an acute accent here marking the stressed vowel.
- In given names of three syllables, the second syllable is usually stressed, as in Gaylódho, Meóla.
- The principal exception to this is found in names which begin with a closed syllable and end with the sequences ‹ea, eo, oe, oa›. In these cases, the first syllable is stressed. Compare Ásfoa, Áfdea, but Gaydéa, Omméo.
- In matronymics and patronymics, the stress of the underlying name is preserved, as in Gaylódhonnan, unless this would yield more than two consecutive unstressed syllables, in which case stress is shifted to the next syllable to the right, as in Asfóannan.