Nasalization

"Nasal" means "through the nose". In Beaver, just as in French, some vowels are pronounced through the nose. Whenever there is a little hook under a vowel, it means it is pronounced through the nose. (And by the way: the French don't use that little hook! Only the Beaver do!)

Tone

Beaver is what linguists call a "tone language", meaning that the pitch at which you pronounce a word is important. Some words have "high tone", meaning that they are pronounced with a higher pitch than others, and other words do not.

This tone is not easy to hear when a word is pronounced on its own, but in greater context, you can hear it very well. Try the following two examples:

Throughout this little alphabet, we have marked the tone of the words by a little "accent" on the vowel. Thus, the letter "ó" is high tone, while "o" is not. If we write something like "ée", this means that the vowel starts out high and then falls.

And now, have fun with the Beaver Alphabet!