pronounced slowly and have the stress of the voice upon them. The short vowels are pronounced quickly and have no stress of voice upon them. Thus the Konkani long and short vowels are not very different from the long and short Latin vowels. The short a is considerably different: it can be best learned from a teacher. The nearest approach to it is the short u in English, e.g. but, or the a in faro; although even this u and a are not the Konkani short a. In words of more than one syllable, this a short is pronounced almost as a short o.
I shall mark, if required, the long vowels by this sign ¯, placed above the vowel, the short vowels by this sign ˘.
Moreover some vowels may have an open or a closed sound as in Italian l'oro, loro. I shall use the sign ` to indicate the open, and the sign ´ to indicate the closed sound, when it may be required.
Besides the usual full vowels a, e, i, o, u there is a half vowel; this is not an a, not an o, not an u: it is a middle sound similar to the half vowel which is added by the Romans to the words which end in a consonant. This sound is necessary, chiefly when a word ends in a double consonant; because without pronouncing this half vowel, the double consonant cannot be heard. Moreover there is a vowel, which may be called nearly u, because it sounds almost like u. It occurs in many words which have the accent upon the preceding syllable, e.g. kēsụ = hair. It is similar to the preceding half vowel; yet there seems to be some difference.
As in Konkani no word can end in a pure full consonant, it will not be necessary to express this in writing, if this general rule be remembered, i.e. that no word can end in a pure consonant. Hence, if a word ends in a consonant in this Grammar and in the Dictionary, this half vowel must be always understood. It is true that there are degrees in the pronunciation of it, so that sometimes it is hardly heard, sometimes it seems to be half a, etc., yet for the present these
