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Most people think that phonology is just an inventory of sounds; sometimes, it's all we got for a lang that's worth mentioning. Moreover, orthography serves as as simple 1:1f representation of sounds to writing. But why go that way? Languages contain a massive history behind it, and more often than not writing doesn't always have a chance to catch up. It's often overlooked, because it's just sometimes too burdensome.

But not for me.

First, let's discuss Rahfatge. Rahfatge is a language I've been working on since about 2005, on and off. Originally, it was a Germanic language called Rahim, using hand-crafted sound changes and a mass spreadsheet of Proto-Germanic words. I've decided to shy away from this, and start fresh. This is for a fantasy story I've been working on (oldbies might remember my Races of the Falling Mountain post from years, years ago.)

Background information aside, this post details the orthographs they of the Raitgnoecht dialect of Rahfatge. deft-Oyghber sercys Raitgnoecht (the Cathedral of Raitgnoecht), specifically. The institution is highly important as it was the founding location of the printing press; its orthography, therefore, is the most common and accepted form in Rahfatge.

* [dəft‿ˈøːvbɚ sɚɕ‿ˈrːæjʨnøxt].

Vowel inventory and orthography



The alveolar-palatal set is specific to Raitgnoecht; other dialects use a postalveolar or palatal series. /ɣ/ used to exist (in other dialects, it still verily does), but has changed in this dialectal to /f/ (or /v/), depending on environment. As a note, /ɨ ə ɚ/ are purely atonic vowels; /ɛ/ lowers to /æ/ when lengthened.,

So, how do we marry this with a writing system? Vowels are easier to start with. Using six letters, transcribed as <i e a o u y> represent the six core vowels: [i y e a o u ]. [œ] is represented with the digraph <oe>. <H> is used with varying uses; with <ih uh>, it prohibits a long vowel if the constraints would allow it (among other things, to be discussed later); with <eh oeh ah oh>, it represents [ɛ œ æ ɔ] (though remember, [æ] only exists if its long, not short).

Short vowels can be represented in a myriad of ways, other than the simple pure ones I've shown so far.



Now, long vowels have two basic ways of being represented. In monosyllables, or on the word's final syllable, a final <e> after a single consonant (but not orthographical cluster) forces the vowel long.



Within the boundaries of a consonant, there are other means to represent a long vowel. The following is the full list of long vowel spellings:


The three unstressed vowels [ɨ ə ɚ] are represented much more simply; these vowels only exist when unstressed. After the stress, <i> represents [ɨ], and word-finally [y]. [ə] is spent <e>, but only in unstressed syllables. Likewise, [ɚ] is <er> in unstressed circumstances, but sometimes <re> (more often in borrowings, however.)

I'll talk about diphthongs later.

Consonant inventory and orthography



The plosives are rather straightforward: <p b t d k g> represents their phoneme-sake. The fricatives affricates deserve a little attention: [ʦ] is writtesn rather plainly, <cs>. [ʣ] is written <gz>, <gs>, or <ds>; <ts> and <dz> are never used for the affricates; [ts] and [ʦ] do contrast with one another. [ʨ] is written <tge> word-finally, as well as <tg> + a front consonant. [ʥ] is represented (unsurprisingly), <dge> word finally, and <dg> + front consonant; the final e, in this instance and most others, will force a long vowel; e.g., <edge> [ˈeːʥ] and <ehdge> [ˈeʥ].

The fricatives, [f v], are written <f> and <v>, except in the condition of gh plus a consonant; if this consonant voiced, it is [v], if not, it is [f]; [ɣ] broke down into a labio-dental fricative and assimilated accordingly. [θ] is written <th>, but appears in extremely limited circumstances in this spelling: At the end of a word, or at the beginning of one but followed by a consonant. In between vowels, <th> is [ð], and in the beginning of a word, provided that there is no consonant following. In other conditions, <dh> will suffice for [ð]. [θ] does not contrast in between vowels in a word, but does across word boundaries (i.e., <bethen> [ˈbɛðən] and <beth en> [ˈbɛθ‿ən]).

[s] and [z] should be straightforward; <s> before a voiceless consonant, at the beginning and end of a word, and written <ss> between vowels. [z] is written <z>, <s> between vowels, and before or after a voiced consonant. [ɕ] is written <ce> at the end of a word (also marking the length of the previous vowel, unless otherwise suppressed; or <sc> plus a front vowel; or <stc>, otherwise. [ʑ] is written <ge> at the end of a word; <zg> plus a front vowel; and <zdg> otherwise. <c> + front vowel, or <g> + front vowel is sporadic in whether its 'hard' or 'soft.'

[x] is spelt <ch> in all instances. <h> exists word-initially, and sometimes between vowels (though not always). [m n] are straightforward; [j] is written <j>, and [w] can be spelt <w> or <ou>, depending on the origin of the word.

Lastly, [r] is written <r>, and [ʀ] is written <rr>, <rh>, or <r> after a back vowel. [l] is written <l>.

Any questions, thoughts, etc.? Bitchings about the preponderance of this, and how English-ly it is? Come on. I know you want to.

Coming soon: Native orthography and allophony. Perhaps also a spot of grammar.

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KneeQuickie | Proto-Deithas Reference Grammar

I do like how /tɕ/ is written as /tge/, and I don't believe this is too English-y.

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[bɹ̠ˤʷɪs.təɫ]
Nōn quālibet inīquā cupiditāte illectus hoc agō
Yo te pongo en tu lugar...
Taisc mach Daró

gonna look at this later when I'm fully awake. first impression is that it looks like English and Catalan got it on right outside a leaky nuclear plant and had the phonological equivalent of a six-eyed mutant baby, so this'll probably be pretty badass.


/slashes/ for phonemes, <angle brackets> for orthography

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Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

I do like the look of this. I've noticed that many, many conlangs have a 1-to-1 correspondence between their orthographies and their phonemic inventories, so in my own I've attempted to provide a fair amount of depth to the writing system (and a bit in the transcription). Not quite as much as this, though! Definitely looking forward to what you'll post next.

tbh, it rather goes without saying that not enough conlangs have anything in their phonologies beyond phoneme inventories, as that's been pointed out here by many people.

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The Arrakum language | Conlanging blog

Yes, the <angle brackets>, sorry

I agree, the orthography for the affricates is a bit Catalan-esque.. but English has similar trigraphs as well.

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[bɹ̠ˤʷɪs.təɫ]
Nōn quālibet inīquā cupiditāte illectus hoc agō
Yo te pongo en tu lugar...
Taisc mach Daró

How weird. Part of the feel I was going for this language is a Germanic-Catalan hybrid feel. Seems to have worked!

@Bristel, thank you; I wanted to go <dge>, but I realized that was a little too close for comfort.



It's why if you're going to post something, be honest about it. If it's just an inventory and some orthography, then post it--but if there's nothing to talk about, then save it until it can exist as a forward to real language content. I hope to see your orthography, though; I'll be more than happy to comment on it.

Thank you, and when I resolve my touchpad issue, I'll be putting together more information for you.

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KneeQuickie | Proto-Deithas Reference Grammar

I think this would be a lot easier to understand with more examples.


Why?


So is this for an althistory, or is there another lang in your conworld with a French-like orthography?

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Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.

Tyh Ring offers a plethora of borrowings into the language's word base and innovations into the writing system. Tyh Ring was written in stone carvings, from right to left; the runes for TS, when viewed from left-to-right, looked very similar to <cs> in the old script. This was adopted into borrowings of personal names, and then became the standardization.



Similarly, <W> is used for native Tyh Ring words; <ou> is a borrowing from a relative of Rahfatge (that I've yet to name), which is more forgiving to consecutive vowels (as one can see, <ou> is also used for [uː], which isn't a coincidence). A word, such as <ouan> would be natively rendered as [ˈuːan], while Rahfatge pronounced it as [ˈwan].

Give me a few minutes, I'll get some examples ready.

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KneeQuickie | Proto-Deithas Reference Grammar

Information on the Roman transcription and the native script is in the link in my signature. I've worked on making it so that there is a decent amount of social context to the writing system regarding what glyphs are used, the format and the character shape, as suits the conculture. I don't really know how well I've succeeded, since people generally haven't commented much on that aspect of the script and I am, of course, rather biased on the matter.

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The Arrakum language | Conlanging blog

Alright, I promised some examples. Here they are.



And, for consonants,



Woo! There you go, "some" examples.

Before anyone notices, the name of the city is Raitgnoecht. It is not a typo of Raitgenoecht. <tg> does exist as a spelling unit, but what I've listed are the predictable ones--this one isn't, and will be filed for later under irregularities.

@Risla, I'll reply in your thread in due time.

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KneeQuickie | Proto-Deithas Reference Grammar

I like it. It looks like a cross between various assorted Germanic languages, Catalan and a con-Brythonic language. But I like it. It's suitably naturalistic, has its own distinctive flavour and isn't sterile or dull like some orthographies are.

What's the origin of the 'magic 'e', by the way? I'm surprised to see it in a non-English derived conlang.



I think I've found a typo

Awesome aesthetic.

I like it. My orthography is 1:1, but there are a bunch of accents that aren't too far removed from the original but have still lost the 1:1 in some areas. But at the same time, it's just a convenient way for me to write it without putting a whole lot of thought into it, and I can always come back to it later, and I certainly plan to do so when/if I invent a native script for it. Because that'll likely come from somewhere else and not have enough sounds.

Thank you.



This 'magic e' is a relic of Old Rahfatge's writing system. Old Rahftage was a language that had a series of palatalizing consonants (which are now lost). They used the schwa as a diactric to mark this palatalization; when the printing presses took over, the diactrics were leveled back to individual characters; E and schwa were very similar, and were therefore merged (this didn't just happen in Raitgnoecht, either; the confusion between E and schwa as separate letters goes as far back as OR).

When palatalization was lost, it lengthened the previous vowel; so, this palatalization diactric remained as a marker of length, and merged with the letter E.

And thank you for pointing out that typo. Silly me. My Excel chart is correct, so it was just a transcription error.

@Finlay, when you get a chance, I'd like to take a look.

Within the next twenty four hours, I'll present to you the verbal system.

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KneeQuickie | Proto-Deithas Reference Grammar

That is pretty awesome.

Is it always so regular, though? I generally wouldn't expect a writing system to remain a) unambiguous (possible to predict the articulation from writing) and b) predictable (possible to predict the spelling from speech). Have there been standardizations of the writing system to keep it so uniform? Are there words that, when spelled according to the standard, are not so uniform? Relatedly, what sort of misspellings or spelling variations are common, if any?

Ninja edit: I admit to not checking the chart thoroughly for these things, but I didn't see anything apparent. Apologies for the stupid questions if there are.

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The Arrakum language | Conlanging blog

(No, there aren't any stupid questions here. I purposefully held off on misspellings and inconsistencies so I can have a few examples ready; but, I do have some ready, so here goes!)

That one I can answer without any research at all: The Cathedral of Raitgnoecht has standardized writing, mainly because it has a monopoly of the printing press. But they aren't linguists by any measure--so standardization can change between, say, printings. Hell, depending on which Sister is overseeing the printing efforts, her preferences will matter more than the existing standard. What I've shown you are common spellings, and the list provided is by no means conclusive.

The most basic one is that vowel length isn't always predictable, even if you know the root of the word; to give an indication, the verb "to go" is declined as follows:


There's really no prediction here. <jag> and <jaag> should differ by vowel length, according to spelling, but it's about the quality of the final consonant. Nothing that we've learned about spelling should indicate that <jagt> and <jagter> have two wildly different pronunciations (especially in that <gt> represents both [d͡ʑ] and [zd], but <gt> is hardly a common spelling unit for either!).

For an easier example, consider "to give", <thale>, pronounced rather bluntly [ˈðaːl]; the plural of this verb is <thalen>, pronounced [ˈðaːln]; yet, "to eat" singular is <caine> [ˈkæjn], plural <cainen> [ˈkɛnən]--knowing the quality of the vowel before an inflection applied should help--but only about 70% of the time.

The greater mispelling of all time is the confusion of <th> and <dh>: <Dh> is oftentimes written at the start of a word with no consonant following, even though it isn't necessary. <Th> is written <dh> with varying frequency, no matter its quality, and there are still folk who insist that tx should be used for [ð]. Out in the farms, those who've learned their letters, swap the letters around: <th dh> for [t d] and <t d> for [θ ð], because "it feels more right."

Vowel quality and quantity is a pain, too--most people ignore vowel quantity altogether, others refuse to spell [o] and [ɔ] differently. Those same folks see [ɛ] as a variant of [i], so spell it ih.

And, as previously stated, the state of alveolar-palatal consonants is still out there.

I hope that sheds some light on this situation!

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KneeQuickie | Proto-Deithas Reference Grammar

This is so awesome! I love unintuitive orthographies (<stc> /ɕ/ is fantastic), especially ones with irregularities. Not enough conlangers make cool spelling systems.

Do you think you'll have a lot of unpredictable pronunciations, or just have them for the most common words?

I love it! I should do that someday.

Just curious, how did you make the lovely vowel and consonant charts in the original post?

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Remember, kids. Aspirate your initial plosives!
http://nathansoftware.blogspot.com

FOSCA

I'm sure this has been answered somewhere, but what is a "front consonant?" Do you mean a palatized consonant?

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[quote="Nortaneous"]Is South Africa better off now than it was a few decades ago?[/quote]

Thank you. I battled with <stc> for a while, but it grew on me--glad it has received favorable praise. I want the orthography to be predictable about 70% of the time, less than English, but enough to make it usable. I'd rather not make a Pahlavi-style script, where the majority of it is abbreviations and spellings from another language. Though awesome, wouldn't be fun.



Again, thank you (I can't say that enough, can I?) The vowel charts are made in Excel; I removed the grid lines, copied it, and pasted it into GIMP. I converted the white background into transparency. I then apply a drop shadow, then collapsed both layers, and autocropped the layer, then the image. Save as png, and call it a day.



That's a typo; it's meant to say "front vowel." Palatalized consonants are no longer an aspect of the sound system.

I'll write up a post about grammar here in a minute.

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KneeQuickie | Proto-Deithas Reference Grammar

Stop! Grammar time!

I'll start with the verbs, because I'm most interested. The basic verb is descended from the Old Rahfatge participle; but it has expanded to fill the function of the verb as a whole.

The basic verb expresses two moods (Indicative and Conjunctive); the conjunctive is marked as such (rather than a traditional term, such as subjunctive) as it closely tied to conjunctions and subordinating clauses; a good number of these conjunctions do not trigger an irrealis meaning, but rather a more narrow indicative descriptor (such as interrogative mood). Both moods express two grammatical aspects, imperfect and perfect (which are textbook in their likeness); the imperfect expresses both present and past tense, while the perfect expresses only the present tense. The conjunctive does not have a perfect aspect. And, as well, agrees with the subject in singular or plural.

There are three main classes of verbs: Class I, Class II, and Class IIIa and IIIb (r-type, and l-type, respectively). Their conjugation is unimportant at the moment, except to note that the indicative imperfect past does not distinguish the plural from the singular. I'll simply provide a basic chart:



As I expand on the verbs, more classes and inconsistencies will be revealed.

The real meat and potatoes of verbs, however, comes from the copula. There are four main copulas, each dedicated to how the information is gained; these evidentials are joestc, dy, viel, and andle; respectively, visual, reportative, inferential (direct), and inferential (general). Each one expresses the same tenses as previously discussed. In addition, the copula also expresses aspect: Base, Habitual, Continuous, Inchoative, and Cessative--these are the "grammatical" copulas. In the spoken language, as opposed to the literary standard, this is an open class, available to all sorts of innovation.

The forms appear to be regular and grid-like, however their pronunciation is heavily modified--each form has a specific pronunciation that cannot be determined by its spelling (though, not directly). Instead of copying the table into a code block, I've prepped them into a .png, so that you may appreciate the fullness of the system:



This I shall leave you for the evening. How this fits into syntax, and how auxiliaries work in creating additional tenses, voices, etc., as well as narrower classifications of the evidentials will come soon. Enjoy!

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KneeQuickie | Proto-Deithas Reference Grammar

Here's a typo: andle rathe [@n'dra:D] instead of andle rathe [ən'draːð]

Looks good, would love to see this in some examples.

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[bɹ̠ˤʷɪs.təɫ]
Nōn quālibet inīquā cupiditāte illectus hoc agō
Yo te pongo en tu lugar...
Taisc mach Daró