For some native speakers recorded in The Sparkman Grammar of Luiseño, the allophones and are free variants of and respectively. However, other speakers do not use these variants. Sparkman records fewer than 25 Luiseño words with either or. For one of these words the pronunciations and are both recorded. Unstressed freely varies with. Likewise, unstressed and are free variants.
Vowel syncope
Vowels are often syncopated when attaching certain affixes, notably the possessive prefixes no- "my", cham- "our", etc. Hence polóv "good", but o-plovi "your goodness"; kichum "houses", but kichmi "houses".
Vowel length
Luiseño distinguishes vowel length quantitatively. Luiseño vowels have three lengths.
Short: The basic vowel length. In writing, this is the standard value of a given vowel, e.g..
Long: The vowel is held twice as long but with no change in quality. In writing, a long vowel is often indicated by doubling it, e.g..
Overlong: The vowel is held three times as long but with no change in quality. In writing, an overlong vowel is indicated by tripling it, e.g..
Overlong vowels are rare in Luiseño, typically reserved for absolutes, such as interjections, e.g. aaashisha, roughly "haha!".
Accent
A stress accent regularly falls on the first syllable of a word. In Luiseño, stress is fixed and is not contrastive. Many orthographies mark irregular stress with an acute accent on the stressed syllable's vowel, e.g. chilúy "speak Spanish". In these systems, irregularly stressed long vowels either carry a written accent on both vowels or the first vowel only, e.g. koyóówut or koyóowut "whale". Also, stress is not visually represented when it falls on the first syllable, e.g. hiicha "what". Another convention is to mark stress by underlining accented vowels, e.g. koyoowut "whale". As a rule, the possessive prefixes are unstressed. The accent remains on the first syllable of the root word, e.g. nokaamay "my son" and never *nokaamay. One rare exception is the wordpó-ha "alone", whose invariable prefix and fixed accent suggests that it is now considered a single lexical item.
and are found only in borrowed words, principally from Spanish and English.
Both and are found in word initial position. However, only occurs intervocalically, and only is found preconsonantally and at word final position. Examples of these allophones in complementary distribution abound, such as yaʼásh and yaʼáchi.
Orthography
Spelling systems
Along with an extensive oral tradition, Luiseño has a written tradition that stretches back to the Spanish settlement of San Diego. Pablo Tac, a native Luiseño speaker and Mission Indian, was the first to develop an orthography for his native language while studying in Rome to be a Catholic priest. His orthography leaned heavily on Spanish, which he learned in his youth. Although Luiseño has no standard orthography, a commonly accepted spelling is implemented in reservation classrooms and college campuses in San Diego where the language is taught. The various orthographies that have been used for writing the language show influences from Spanish, English and Americanist phonetic notation.
IPA
Pablo Tac
Sparkman
Modern
ii
iꞏ
ii
cʼ
č
ch
sʼ
š
sh
qʼ
q
q
ʼ
ʔ
ʼ
j
x
x
δ
th / ð
nʼ
ŋ
ng / ñ
y
y
y
Sample texte nóo póy vičuq
The Lord's Prayer in Luiseño, as recorded in The Sparkman Grammar of Luiseño:
