Pronunciation Guide

Medar is a phonetic language - when written with letters, it is read exactly how it looks. However, some letters are read differently than most people would expect. Medar is usually written in a script known as Old Idram, but this script is dying out in favour of the simple alphabet that is used today and is now only used to write texts on magic.

In general, though, Medar is not one of the languages where pronunciation is vitally important to communication. Most will understand any odd speech, although they may have a chuckle about how "uneducated" an outsider is if that happens.

While it is usually easy to read written Medar in letter form, there are a few letters that have some significance.

The sound of "a"
Most people, when faced with Medar words that have many As, would pronounce the a with the sound "ae", like in "cater". However, this is not the case. The A is pronounced as a short "aa" as if opening the mouth at a dentist's. Thus the words below would be read as such, with the pronunciation on the right:
 * Carramua - kar-ra-mu-a
 * Faros - fa-ros
 * Ullbaria - ool-ba-reea
 * Karda Ignaman - kar-da igna-man

The apostrophe
Words like Ahar'Kulakh and Nar'akhrim confuse people because of the apostrophe. In Medar, the apostrophe lengthens the vowel before it. Thus pronunciation would be as such for the following words: Note that the rest of the word after the apostrophe should be read as if it is not connected to the letters before the apostrope.
 * Ahar'Kulakh - a-haar ku-lakh (there is a separate pronunciation for the kh, see below)
 * Nar'akhrim - naar akrim
 * Ai'dhul - a-ee dool

The "kh"
Infamous for confusing people, the letters "kh" together may have a different pronunciation depending on the word. "kh" is never read separate, which is an easy mistake to make.

The first pronunciation of "kh" is only applicable when the word begins with a vowel and is followed by "kh". Example: The word would be pronounced as "e-krim". Note the silence of the h.
 * Ekhrim

If "kh" is part of a pronounced section, then it is pronounced as a k ending in a guttural h from the back of the throat. Some say it sounds like you're hocking up phlegm, except a little more subtly.

The word "Ahar'Kulakh" is representative of all three pronunciation differences, so it should be read as such:

a-haar ku-lak-hh

where hh represents the guttural h.

The "sv"
Words with "sv" are rare, but exist. They are easy to read, as any word with the letters "sv" in them have a vowel directly after. Both the s and the v are pronounced very quickly and are usually done in a soft hiss. When pronouncing "sv", it sounds like "sev" in the same way you'd say "sir".

The "aa"
Words with "aa" are more common than "sv", but still not very common compared to the other sounds. Reading this would only be just a long version of "aa".

The "sy"
"Sy" depends on the letter right after. If the letter after "sy" does not curl the tongue over the next part of the word, it is pronounced with the short "se".
 * The "sy" in Syrellia is pronounced as "sir" because of the r.
 * The "sy" in Sylenndor is pronounced as "sill" because of the l.

The "c"
'''C is never pronounced as "ch" unless the letter is followed by a "h". '''It is instead pronounced with a hard k sound. Medar does not have any written word that contains two Cs in a row.