Alphabet and Pronunciation

The Ido alphabet contains 26 letters — 5 vowels and 21 consonants — most of which sound very much like their English equivalents:

Ido	ENGLISH	IPA	EXAMPLE
a	a	a	father
b	b	b	boat
c	ts	ʦ	ʦ as in mitts
d	d	d	deportation
e	e	e	wet
f	f	f	famous
g	g	g	gargantuan before all letters
h	h	h	homeward
i	ee	i	teen
j	j	ʒ	Jaques (or [ʤ] as in Jake after n)
k	k	k	kite
l	l	l	long
m	m	m	moat
n	n	n	nautical
o	o	o	olfactory
p	p	p	political
q	kw	kw	quick (only appears before u)
r	r	r	Spanish señora (with a trilled [r])
s	s	s	suspend
t	t	t	tank
u	oo	u	boot
v	v	v	invasion
w	w	w	western
x	ks/gz*	ks/gz*	box or exam (even at the beginning of words)
y	y	j	yodel (never a vowel, as in byte, and never follows a vowel in the same syllable)
z	z	z	zither

Like English, Ido uses the letter h in combination with certain other letters to produce “husher” sounds:

Ido	ENGLISH	IPA	EXAMPLE
ch	ch	ʧ	charming
sh	sh	ʃ	shore

Ordinarily, when two vowels come together in a Ido word, each is pronounced separately. (Eg., koaktar is pronounced ko-ak-tar.) Some vowels, however, combine with other vowels to form sounds pronounced as a single (or close to single) syllable, as in English coin and couch. These combination vowel sounds are called diphthongs.

The letters i and u, when they are not the only vowel in a root and are immediately followed by a different vowel in the same word, produce a “rising” diphthong (ex. ia, ie, io, iu, ua, ue, ui, uo).

After the letters q or g, the letter u always produces a diphthong when followed by another vowel, even another u. (Otherwise, two of the same vowel are still pronounced separately.)

The letter u also forms a “falling” diphthong after a or e. The letter i, however, does not form falling diphthongs.

Note that the vowels a or e + u in compound words do not form diphthongs if they belong to different roots or affixes:

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Tonic Stress

Generally speaking, words in Ido are stressed on the next-to-the-last syllable, as in fortuno [for-'tu-no] and menciono [men-'ʦjo-no]. The exceptions to this rule are infinitive verbs, which are stressed on the last syllable (eg., parolar, “to speak”, pronounced [pa-ro-'lar]).

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