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Chlouvānem: Difference between revisions
→Writing system - Jīmalāṇa
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==Writing system - Jīmalāṇa== | ==Writing system - Jīmalāṇa== | ||
Chlouvānem has been written since the late First Era in an alphabet called ''Chlouvānaumi jīmalāṇa'' ("Chlouvānem alphabet", the noun ''jīmalāṇa'' is actually a collective derivation from ''jīma'' "character"), developed with influence of the script used for the ancient Kūṣṛmāthi language, which, however, was an abugida. The orthography for Chlouvānem represents how it was pronounced in Classical times, but it's completely regular to read in all present-day local pronunciations. | Chlouvānem has been written since the late First Era in an alphabet called ''Chlouvānaumi jīmalāṇa'' ("Chlouvānem alphabet", the noun ''jīmalāṇa'' is actually a collective derivation from ''jīma'' "character"), developed with influence of the script used for the ancient Kūṣṛmāthi language, which, however, was an abugida. The orthography for Chlouvānem represents how it was pronounced in Classical times, but it's completely regular to read in all present-day local pronunciations. | ||
The Chlouvānem alphabet is actually a defective script, at least in normal writing, as the phoneme /a/ is usually not written. It can be written with a diacritic sign, but this is only done in books aimed at children or language learners, in dictionaries, or in some rare cases where disambiguation is necessary, as two following letters may represent either a consonant cluster or there could be an /a/ between them; word-initial /a/ is however written with the character that represents the glottal stop otherwise. To make some examples, in the Chlouvānem script a word like ''marta'' "city" is written <mrt>, while ''avyāṣa'' "time, moment" is written < | The Chlouvānem alphabet is actually a defective script, at least in normal writing, as the phoneme /a/ is usually not written. It can be written with a diacritic sign, but this is only done in books aimed at children or language learners, in dictionaries, or in some rare cases where disambiguation is necessary, as two following letters may represent either a consonant cluster or there could be an /a/ between them; word-initial /a/ is however written with the character that represents the glottal stop otherwise. To make some examples, in the Chlouvānem script a word like ''marta'' "city" is written <mrt>, while ''avyāṣa'' "time, moment" is written <ʔvyāṣ>: Chlouvānem speakers are however able in the vast majority of cases to tell which word is meant due to context. Note that, however, the letter <a> is a proper letter of the alphabet, usually written as <ʔ> with the <a> diacritic. | ||
The romanization used for Chlouvānem avoids this problem by giving each phoneme a single character or digraph, but it stays as close as possible to the native script. Aspirated stops and diphthongs are romanized as digraphs and not by single letters; geminate letters, which are represented with a diacritic in the native script, are romanized by writing the consonant twice - in the aspirated stops, only the first letter is written twice, so /ppʰ/ is <pph> and not *<phph>. The following table contains the whole Chlouvānem alphabet as it is romanized, following the native alphabetical order: | The romanization used for Chlouvānem avoids this problem by giving each phoneme a single character or digraph, but it stays as close as possible to the native script. Aspirated stops and diphthongs are romanized as digraphs and not by single letters; geminate letters, which are represented with a diacritic in the native script, are romanized by writing the consonant twice - in the aspirated stops, only the first letter is written twice, so /ppʰ/ is <pph> and not *<phph>. The following table contains the whole Chlouvānem alphabet as it is romanized, following the native alphabetical order: | ||
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Some orthographical and phonological notes: | |||
* /ŋ/ is written as <l> before <k g kh gh n>; <ll> before other consonants; and <nll> intervocalically. | |||
* The sequences /eɦe aɦa uɦu iɦ(ʲ)i/ are written <ęe ąa ųu įi>; the digraph <ęa> represents /eɦa/ but only in optative verbal stems, used for the optative and propositive moods. | |||
<ou> is usually not considered a letter of the alphabet, because - as mentioned in the Phonology section - the represented phoneme only appears in the toponym Chlou and derived words (some people from Chlou, however, do count <ou> as a separate letter). | |||
Letter names are formed following these simple rules, which depend by phoneme type: | |||
* Voiceless unaspirated stops and fricatives are phoneme + /uː/ (pū, tū, sū, þū...) except for <ʔ> which is aʔū. Voiceless aspirated stops are phoneme + /au̯/ (phau, thau...). | |||
* Voiced unaspirated stops and fricatives are phoneme + /iː/ (bī, vī, dī..., but aðī), while aspirated ones use /ai̯/ (bhai, dhai...). This latter diphthong is also used for yai, hai, and lai. | |||
* Nasals and <r> use /ei̯/ (mei, nei, rei...), but <ṃ> is, uniquely, ''nālkāvi''. | |||
* Short unrounded (Classical) vowels are vowel + /t/ + vowel (iti, ete...); short rounded ones have /p/ instead of /t/ (ypy, upu, opo). | |||
* Long vowels are vowel + /n/ if unrounded (īn, ėn, ān), or /m/ if rounded (in Classical Laceyiam) (ȳm, ūm). Oral diphthongs all have diphthong + /m/ + first element (aima, eime...). | |||
* Breathy-voiced vowels are vowel + /ɦ/ + vowel (įi, ųu, ęe, ąa). Breathy-voiced diphthongs are diphthong + /ɦ/ + oral second element (ąihi, ęihi, ąuhu). | |||
==Morphology== | ==Morphology== | ||