"Kony qēlos gevie issa!"

Translation: That is a beautiful star!

[Rod228860]

Is "ee" really supposed to sound like "ae"?

[linguista420]

The vowel quality can be influenced by the point of articulation of the preceding consonant. The “q” sound is uvular (low in the throat compared to other sounds) and this lowness can carry over to the the vowel that follows (“a” is a lower vowel than “e”). In the acoustics of a long vowel like this, you would hear the lowering more at the beginning, which makes it sound almost like a diphthong (a sound that changes between two vowels in a single “syllable”).