Winners in the Game
Winners in the Game

The alphabet of the modern altaian language is based on the graphical traditions of the cyrillic. All the letters of the altaian language idicate the similar sounds as in the russian language, except for the altaian national letters ӧ, ӱ, ј, ҥ.

Letter  “ј” /ɟ/ should be pronounced as a soft “d”. And often at the beginning of a word it is pronounced as a soft “t”, for example: јас [t’as] – spring, јинји [t’ind’i] – necklace.

The nasal (sonorant) consonant “ҥ” is realized as /ŋ/: аҥ [aŋ] – animal, кожоҥ [koʐoŋ] – song.

The rounded letter “ӧ” is  similar with /ɘ/ in the word “girl”.

The rounded front “ӱ”  is similar with /y/ in the word “parashute”.

Double vowels represent a long sound: куу [ku:] – swan.

Longevity or shortness of a vowel change the meanings of the altaian words: кан [kan] – blood, каан [kaan] – king, kӱн [kyn] – sun, кӱӱн [ky:n] – a desire, intention. So you should pay a special attention to the longevity of vowels.

Double consonants are pronounced with some intensity: аттар [attar] – horses.

The altaian words are stressed mainly on the last syllable.

We do not have grammatical gender in altaian language: words “she”, “he” are translated “oл” [ol].