The Kope Alphabet

 

There are 17 letters in the Kope alphabet:

 

' a b d e g h i k m n o p r s t u

 

Kope words in this dictionary are arranged alphabetically according to the above order.

The letter is a consonant. It only occurs between vowels and makes a sound like a catch in the throat. It can occur between different vowels as in o'u ‘to go’ or between identical vowels as in go'ota ‘coconut’. Some people write ‘coconut’ as goota, but in the dictionary we always write the ', even between identical vowels.

The consonant s only occurs in a few loan words like pusi ‘cat’ and sero ‘woven wall cladding’.

Some people write v in a few words like hivio ‘sun’ and orovidio ‘to listen to’. But in this dictionary, these words are spelled with m: himio and oromidio.

Some people write n at the beginning of words (as in ne'ei ‘place’ and r in the middle of words (as in biri ‘door’. In this dictionary we use r at the beginning of words (as in re'ei ‘place’) as well as in the middle of words. We have included a few words with n at the beginning, directing the reader to the r section.

Vowels can occur as regular vowels or stretched vowels. We write the regular vowels with one vowel as in obo ‘water’, and stretched vowels with doubled vowels as in oobo ‘woman’. Since many writers never use doubled vowels, words with stretched vowels are listed with both single and doubled vowels: ‘woman’ is listed under oobo and obo. The entry with a single vowel directs the reader to the entry with doubled vowels.

Words can also be pronounced with different melodies, but this is not shown in the spelling.