Alphabet

COMANCHE SOUNDS AND THE COMANCHE ALPHABET

It is important to distinguish between the sounds in the Comanche language and the alphabet used to represent the sounds.

There are 6 vowel symbols and 14 consonant symbols.  Underlining is used to indicate voiceless vowels, and doubled vowel symbols indicate long vowels.

 

VOWEL SYMBOLS FOR COMANCHE

Symbol	Comanche	English	Comparable sound in English
a	sarii	dog	o in pot or a in father
e	ekapitʉ	red	between a in gate and e in get
i	waʔipʉ	woman	ea in neat or ee in keep
o	pohya	walk	similar to o in hope
u	suniku	like that	oo in root or scoop
ʉ	ʉnʉ	you	similar to u in put or u in undo

 

Vowels written with double symbols are pronounced like the corresponding single symbol vowels, but held longer:

Symbol	Comanche	English
aa	kaarʉ	sit
ee	kʉtseena	coyote
ii	sarii	dog
oo	waʔoo	cat
uu	huutsuu	bird
ʉʉ	Nʉʉmʉ	Comanche

 

Whispered vowels are indicated by underlining.  They are almost inaudible.

Symbol	Comanche	English
a	kaawosa	coyote
e	taabe	sun
i	noobi	hill
o	aawo	cup
u	uhtu	give
ʉ	tsaatʉ	good

 

Comanche also has combinations of two vowels.

For example, ai, pronounced like the ie of pie, as in taiboo, a “non Indian person,” and oi, pronounced like the oy of toy, as in hoitsʉbʉnʉsʉ, “how about yourself.”

CONSONANT SYMBOLS FOR COMANCHE 

Symbol	Comanche	English	Comparable sound in English
b	tʉbitsi	really	similar to v in having
h	haitsi	friend	h of horse
k	kee	no	k of skip
kw	kwasi	tail	qu of queen
m	mia	go	m of meat
n	nʉʉka	dance	n of neat
p	puuku	horse	p of speech
r	arʉka	deer	tt of better, or d of rider
s	sarii	dog	s of same
t	tanʉ	we	t of stop
ts	tsihtiahwe	point	ts of hits
w	wʉʉnʉ	stand	w of weather
y	yahne	laugh	y of yet
ʔ	moʔo	hand	glottal stop, as in uh-oh

 

There are also a few sound / spelling variations you need to be aware of:

• the “t” is sometimes pronounced as an “r” and

• the “p” is sometimes pronounced as a “b”