How is "√" pronounced?
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I'm being serious, I have a keen interest in native languages, particularly ones from where I live (Salishan). I saw in a Lushootseed dictionary this phrase "x̌ʷulʼəxʷ ʔəs√ʔaʔəyʼil". How is the "√" pronounced? I cannot find anything.
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I'm not familiar with Lushootseed, in fact, this is my first time hearing about the language, but I've done some homework and this is what I've found. In some (not sure about all) Lushootseed dictionaries, they use √ marks to divide prefixes from roots. In other words, "√" doesn't get pronounced, it's just there to make things easier to read in the dictionary. I hope that helps.
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That's interesting to know, even though I've got no plans to study Lushootseed. I think it's the first time I've seen the "√" symbol seriously used for something non-mathematical. I assume that the choice involved a groanworthy linguistic pun on the term "root" :).
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That makes a lot of sense, thanks! I saw that PDF used the symbol as a vowel, but it also used capital "E" and "Q" as symbols, so I don't know what was going on with that linguistics class... I probably should have guessed it marked roots, seeing as it's a polysynthetic language. Thank you so much!
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Have you verified the word against other sources to determine whether it is a typo?
- It's not a language I'm familiar with, but multiple online sources don't list that character, hence my wondering if it is a typo. (For the curious, an example of a pronunciation guide I checked: http://omniglot.com/writing/lushootseed.htm )
You might want to edit your post and add the name of the language into the title.
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This orthography guide lists several variants for some of the letters, and still doesn't include "√". It also seems like an unlikely character to incorporate into a spelling system. I'm inclined to agree that it's probably a typo.
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Did you try looking for a pronunciation guide in the dictionary? If it's got a pronunciation guide, and "√" isn't in it, I'd suspect a misprint.
dqxxmvyvoedn
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I have seen several other words with this letter, it's even on some official signs in the language. I feel like it may be some sort of really weird phonetic transcription system that never caught on, because I found it on a college lecture PDF where it represented a mid open vowel.
