General Comments

Vowel Harmony

Unlike Finnish, Livonian does not have vowel harmony.

Intonation

Livonian, as Latvian, is recognized as having three intonations, the stretched, the broken, and the falling. Intonation is a feature of the pronunciation of syllables in the language. There exist examples of words that are alike in every way, differing only in their intonation.

In Latvian, the intonations are pronounced in the following manner. Syllables carrying the stretched intonation are pronounced evenly and with constant volume, all the way through. Those with the falling intonation are pronounced louder at the beginning of the syllable, but then with decreasing volume towards the end of the syllable. Syllables with the broken intonation are pronounced with a lilt, or in the speech of some speakers, an actual break or glottal stop in the middle of the syllable. Pronunciation will often increase in volume to the break, and then decrease markedly afterwards. Though explicit descriptions of the intonations and their pronunciation in Livonian were unavailable, it seems likely that the intonations are pronounced in Livonian as they are in Latvian, as this is a characteristic shared by both languages.

In linguistic texts, the broken intonation is marked with an apostrophe. Examples of Livonian words with each intonation are given below.

Stretched Intonation

Broken Intonation

Falling Intonation