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Common (na Xafen): Difference between revisions
→Orthography
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b, d, g, q, v | b, d, g, q, v | ||
Thus, Common uses a 21 letter alphabet. The Common writing system tends to be a very good phonemic representation of Common pronunciation, but does not capture any of the rules of allophony. The other five letters, however, are part of the | Thus, Common uses a 21 letter alphabet. The Common writing system tends to be a very good phonemic representation of Common pronunciation, but does not capture any of the rules of allophony. The other five letters, however, are part of the de facto Common alphabet and are actually used, although increasingly rarely. They exist for historical reasons, because the first keyboards used by writers of Common had these letters, and because Common writers routinely employed some loanwords without adjusting their spelling to the rules of Common. | ||
Even today, some loanwords may have these letters, and they introduce an element of chaos into Common spelling. The best, encouraged style today is to "Commonise" such borrowings to use the closest approximation using the 21 official letters, but a significant number of official, proper spellings using these letters still exist, and as well they are common in personal and place names. The general strategy that Common speakers use to handle such a letter if it appears is to treat it the same as the letter it's most similar to, so to treat d as the same as t, for example, but this is complicated by many factors, such as preservation of irregularities found in the source language, and the fact that many speakers actually can distinguish and pronounce the voiceless/voiced distinction, and do so deliberately, to show off their erudition, or because they are already a speaker of the source language or another, similar language. | Even today, some loanwords may have these letters, and they introduce an element of chaos into Common spelling. The best, encouraged style today is to "Commonise" such borrowings to use the closest approximation using the 21 official letters, but a significant number of official, proper spellings using these letters still exist, and as well they are common in personal and place names. The general strategy that Common speakers use to handle such a letter if it appears is to treat it the same as the letter it's most similar to, so to treat d as the same as t, for example, but this is complicated by many factors, such as preservation of irregularities found in the source language, and the fact that many speakers actually can distinguish and pronounce the voiceless/voiced distinction, and do so deliberately, to show off their erudition, or because they are already a speaker of the source language or another, similar language. | ||