The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) should represent Tuvan pronunciations.
| IPA
|
Phoneme
|
Example
|
| /a/[1]
|
акша
|
[aqˈʃa]
|
'money'
|
| /aː/
|
аарыг
|
[ˌaːˈrɯʁ]
|
'ill'
|
| /ɛ/
|
эртен
|
[ɛrˈtɛn]
|
'morning'
|
| /ɛː/
|
бээр
|
[pɛːr]
|
'give'
|
| /ɪ/
|
ижер
|
[ɪˈʒɛr]
|
'to drink'
|
| /ɪː/
|
диис
|
[tɪːs]
|
'cat'
|
| /ɔ/
|
болур
|
[pɔˈɫʊr]
|
'to be'
|
| /ɔː/
|
ооң
|
[ɔːŋ]
|
'his'
|
| /ʊ/
|
куш
|
[kʊʃ]
|
'bird'
|
| /ʊː/
|
номчуур
|
[nɔmˈd͡ʒʊːr]
|
'to read'
|
| /ø/
|
бөгүн
|
[pøˈɣʏn]
|
'today'
|
| /øː/
|
көөр
|
[køːr]
|
'to see'
|
| /ʏ/
|
күш
|
[kʏʃ]
|
'strength'
|
| /ʏː/
|
үстүү
|
[ʏsˈtʏː]
|
'upper'
|
| /ɯ/
|
адым
|
[aˈdɯm]
|
'my name'
|
| /ɯː/
|
чалбарыыр
|
[t͡ʃaɫ.baˈrɯːr]
|
'to pray'
|
| IPA
|
Accent
|
Example
|
Explanation
|
| /ă/, /à/
|
ъ
|
аът
|
[ăt]
|
'horse'
|
Indicates low-to-high variation of pitch on a vowel.
|
- Stress usually falls on the last syllable of a word, with some exceptions:
- When the word has an allative suffix (-че, -же), it will always fall on the syllable before it (e.g. Тываже [tʰɯˈβa.ʒɛ])
- When the word has a negative suffix (-па, -ба, etc.), stress will always fall on the suffix (e.g. кылбадым [qɯɫˈba.dɯm])
- ^ Central.
- ^ Allophone of [β] when not preceded by a nasal consonant.
- ^ Allophone of [tʃ] after nasal and lateral consonants.
- ^ Retracted to [ɢ] in back-vocalic contexts.
- ^ Retracted to [ʁ] in back-vocalic contexts.
- ^ г is pronounced as a fricative between vowels and at the end of syllables (e.g. агаар [aˈʁaːɾ], суг [sʊʁ], өгбе [øɣˈbe̞]).
- ^ Retracted to [q] in back-vocalic contexts.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 In most cases, п and т are aspirated when at the beginning of words (e.g. пага [pʰaˈʁa], Тыва [tʰɯˈβa]).
- ^ At the beginning of words, б and д are pronounced almost voicelessly (e.g. бурган [pʊrˈɢan], довурак [tɔ.wʊˈraq]).
- ^ Allophone of [β] in rounded vowel contexts when it is not preceded by a nasal consonant.
- ^ Retracted to [χ] in back-vocalic contexts.
