Fenja orthography: An abugida with different inherent vowels
Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 5:58 pm
I've had trouble coming up with glyphs I like, but I really wanted to talk about the design principle of the orthography of my Ansai language group, whose most prominent representative is Undreve. This orthography is named for Fenja, the prestige dialect of a dialect continuum from which the modern Ansai languages descend. It is distinguished by being more or less an abugida but having different inherent vowels for different groups of consonants based on their historical secondary articulation.
Fenja phonology
To start off, we need to understand the phonology of Fenja. In the period where the writing system's usage became (more or less) standardized, most consonants contrasted some subset of labialized (probably technically labiovelarized), palatalized, and velarized or neutral articulations. There is some uncertainty as to whether various "velarized" consonants actually had velar secondary articulation or simply lacked a secondary articulation (and obviously "velarized velars" aren't literally velarized), but for the purposes of the orthography and historical phonology of the descendant languages they will be marked as velarized.
Fenja's consonants are as follows:
/mˠ mʲ nˠ nʲ nʷ/
/pˠ bˠ pʲ bʲ tˠ dˠ tʲ dʲ tʷ dʷ kˠ ɡˠ kʲ ɡʲ kʷ ɡʷ/
/fˠ vˠ fʲ vʲ sˠ zˠ sʲ zʲ sʷ zʷ/
/lˠ lʲ rˠ/
/j w/
As you can see, this is an overlay of secondary articulations on this base inventory:
/m n/
/p b t d k ɡ/
/f v s z/
/l r/
/j w/
(This is more or less the inventory of Proto-Ansai. Fenja's inventory came about after numerous monophthongizations, glide deletions, and other vowel shifts made the secondary articulations phonemic.)
Labialization is only distinguished from velarization on non-labial obstruents and nasals.
Fenja's vowel system distinguishes far more qualities in long vowels than short:
/i a u/
/iː aː uː eː oː ʉː/
Fenja allows syllables of the form (C)V(C)(C). Long vowels can occur in open syllables or syllables ending in a single consonant, but not in syllables ending in two consonants. Coda clusters are restricted to a glide or liquid followed by an obstruent, a homorganic nasal followed by an obstruent (with the coronal nasals assimilated to velars), or a glide followed by a liquid or nasal.
On top of this, consonants in a cluster assimilate in secondary articulation to a following consonant, with /j/ treated as palatalized and /w/ treated as labialized when preceded by another consonant. (They aren't affected by following consonants.) Labialization is not distinguished from velarization before rounded vowels.
Glyphs
Every one of the consonants distinguished in Fenja has a glyph. These consonant glyphs have an inherent short vowel whose quality depends on their secondary articulation: Velarized consonants have an inherent /a/, palatalized consonants have /i/, and labialized consonants have /u/. There is also a "dummy" or "carrier" glyph with inherent vowel /a/, used for word-initial syllables with null onsets. (Provided the vowel isn't a close vowel; initial close vowels are written with the "logical" close vowel glyph, with initial /ʉː/ using the glyph for /j/. This doesn't cause ambiguity because Fenja did not allow word-initial sequences of glide plus close vowel.)
These glyphs will be represented as follows:
/mˠ mʲ nˠ nʲ nʷ/ <MA MI NA NI NU>
/pˠ bˠ pʲ bʲ tˠ dˠ tʲ dʲ tʷ dʷ kˠ ɡˠ kʲ ɡʲ kʷ ɡʷ/ <PA BA PI BI TA DA TI DI TU DU KA GA KI GI KU GU>
/fˠ vˠ fʲ vʲ sˠ zˠ sʲ zʲ sʷ zʷ/ <FA VA FI VI SA ZA SI ZI SU ZU>
/lˠ lʲ rˠ/ <LA LI RA>
/j w 0/ <YI WU HA>
The vowels, meanwhile, have the following set of six glyphs:
/iː aː uː eː oː ʉː/ <I A U E O Ü>
These vowel glyphs cannot be written independently and must have a consonant glyph to carry them.
As you can see, only long vowels are typically written. Since the majority of the time a short vowel following a consonant corresponds to that consonant's inherent vowel, and since the range of legal consonant clusters is not too large, there is not much information loss from having occasional other short vowels or the lack of a vowel not written.
A few example words:
/sʲiɡʲirˠdˠ/ <SI.GI.RA.DA>
/kʷoːzˠɡˠeːnˠ/ <KU.O.ZA.GA.E.NA>
/fʲirˠkʲinʷtʷʉːmʲ/ <FI.RA.KI.NU.TU.Ü.MI>
/vʲʉːlˠaː/ <VI.Ü.LA.A>
Non-palatalized consonants before a rounded vowel are customarily written using the glyphs for labialized consonants if applicable, although it is likely that their actual articulation was in between those of prototypical velarized and labialized consonants; descendants varyingly treat these sounds as labialized or velarized. Consonants that do not distinguish labialization, such as labial consonants and liquids, are written as velarized in this environment.
Next post will cover the development of the script in later Ansai languages, in particular Undreve.
Fenja phonology
To start off, we need to understand the phonology of Fenja. In the period where the writing system's usage became (more or less) standardized, most consonants contrasted some subset of labialized (probably technically labiovelarized), palatalized, and velarized or neutral articulations. There is some uncertainty as to whether various "velarized" consonants actually had velar secondary articulation or simply lacked a secondary articulation (and obviously "velarized velars" aren't literally velarized), but for the purposes of the orthography and historical phonology of the descendant languages they will be marked as velarized.
Fenja's consonants are as follows:
/mˠ mʲ nˠ nʲ nʷ/
/pˠ bˠ pʲ bʲ tˠ dˠ tʲ dʲ tʷ dʷ kˠ ɡˠ kʲ ɡʲ kʷ ɡʷ/
/fˠ vˠ fʲ vʲ sˠ zˠ sʲ zʲ sʷ zʷ/
/lˠ lʲ rˠ/
/j w/
As you can see, this is an overlay of secondary articulations on this base inventory:
/m n/
/p b t d k ɡ/
/f v s z/
/l r/
/j w/
(This is more or less the inventory of Proto-Ansai. Fenja's inventory came about after numerous monophthongizations, glide deletions, and other vowel shifts made the secondary articulations phonemic.)
Labialization is only distinguished from velarization on non-labial obstruents and nasals.
Fenja's vowel system distinguishes far more qualities in long vowels than short:
/i a u/
/iː aː uː eː oː ʉː/
Fenja allows syllables of the form (C)V(C)(C). Long vowels can occur in open syllables or syllables ending in a single consonant, but not in syllables ending in two consonants. Coda clusters are restricted to a glide or liquid followed by an obstruent, a homorganic nasal followed by an obstruent (with the coronal nasals assimilated to velars), or a glide followed by a liquid or nasal.
On top of this, consonants in a cluster assimilate in secondary articulation to a following consonant, with /j/ treated as palatalized and /w/ treated as labialized when preceded by another consonant. (They aren't affected by following consonants.) Labialization is not distinguished from velarization before rounded vowels.
Glyphs
Every one of the consonants distinguished in Fenja has a glyph. These consonant glyphs have an inherent short vowel whose quality depends on their secondary articulation: Velarized consonants have an inherent /a/, palatalized consonants have /i/, and labialized consonants have /u/. There is also a "dummy" or "carrier" glyph with inherent vowel /a/, used for word-initial syllables with null onsets. (Provided the vowel isn't a close vowel; initial close vowels are written with the "logical" close vowel glyph, with initial /ʉː/ using the glyph for /j/. This doesn't cause ambiguity because Fenja did not allow word-initial sequences of glide plus close vowel.)
These glyphs will be represented as follows:
/mˠ mʲ nˠ nʲ nʷ/ <MA MI NA NI NU>
/pˠ bˠ pʲ bʲ tˠ dˠ tʲ dʲ tʷ dʷ kˠ ɡˠ kʲ ɡʲ kʷ ɡʷ/ <PA BA PI BI TA DA TI DI TU DU KA GA KI GI KU GU>
/fˠ vˠ fʲ vʲ sˠ zˠ sʲ zʲ sʷ zʷ/ <FA VA FI VI SA ZA SI ZI SU ZU>
/lˠ lʲ rˠ/ <LA LI RA>
/j w 0/ <YI WU HA>
The vowels, meanwhile, have the following set of six glyphs:
/iː aː uː eː oː ʉː/ <I A U E O Ü>
These vowel glyphs cannot be written independently and must have a consonant glyph to carry them.
As you can see, only long vowels are typically written. Since the majority of the time a short vowel following a consonant corresponds to that consonant's inherent vowel, and since the range of legal consonant clusters is not too large, there is not much information loss from having occasional other short vowels or the lack of a vowel not written.
A few example words:
/sʲiɡʲirˠdˠ/ <SI.GI.RA.DA>
/kʷoːzˠɡˠeːnˠ/ <KU.O.ZA.GA.E.NA>
/fʲirˠkʲinʷtʷʉːmʲ/ <FI.RA.KI.NU.TU.Ü.MI>
/vʲʉːlˠaː/ <VI.Ü.LA.A>
Non-palatalized consonants before a rounded vowel are customarily written using the glyphs for labialized consonants if applicable, although it is likely that their actual articulation was in between those of prototypical velarized and labialized consonants; descendants varyingly treat these sounds as labialized or velarized. Consonants that do not distinguish labialization, such as labial consonants and liquids, are written as velarized in this environment.
Next post will cover the development of the script in later Ansai languages, in particular Undreve.