#syllabary

[roseboy-in-training]

I still haven’t finished doodling characters for the Inyuna syllabary, BUT I am already working out *how* this writing system will work after the absolute hellpit (they’re not actually that bad) of sound changes Inyuna has gone through, so here’s a Step-by-step Guide to Write the Word “Nāhuma”!

First and foremost, we must look at the OI (Old Inyuna) form of the word, i.e. *(hi)n(a)-anka-huu-ban. The first syllable /hi/ will be dropped over time, so we can ignore it, whereas that /a/ will be assimilated by the root *anka, so what we’re actually trying to write is *nankahuuban, which in the syllabary can be pretty easily represented as <na-an-ka-hu-u-ba-an>

Now, the first sound change to come along and ruin everything is syncope. Luckily, in this case it only affects one syllable, turning *nankahuuban into *nankhuuban. To represent this, in the writing system we will add a little accent-like diacritic on the syllable <ka> to suppress its vowel, giving us <na-an-kà-hu-u-ba-an>

Next up is loss of vowel length, which is as simple as removing the lengthening <u> from the spelling: <na-an-kà-hu-u-ba-an> -> <na-an-kà-hu-ba-an>

Then, the so-called “nasal vowels” (could either be actual nasal vowels or oral vowels followed by a nasal, idrc) cause a voiced onset to nasalise. Now, if the onset is a /j/ or a /g/, the spelling wouldn’t be able to change, since it’s still predictable, and there is no specific way to write a /ɲ/ or /ŋ/ sound. In our case, however, /b/ -> /m/ is very easy to reflect in the orthography simply by swapping out <ba> for <ma>: <na-an-kà-hu-ma-an>

The next sound change is aspirated stops (like the /kh/ in our *nankhuman) turning into homorganic (i.e. same place of articulation) fricatives, so *nankhuman -> *nanxuman -> *nanhuman, however, at this point in time, the original /h/ sound has long since fallen off entirely, so repurposing the syllables <ha>, <hi> and <hu> (now almost always pronounced /a/, /i/ and /u/) for the new /h/ sound is a little contrived, so the spelling will stay the same: <na-an-kà-hu-ma-an>

Now, nasal vowels become long oral vowels before fricatives. However, since there isn’t already a way to mark long vowels, and since nasal vowel characters are the only way to distinguish the consonants /g j/ from /ŋ ɲ/ (as in the word nyāsu, spelt <ya-an-su>) the spelling won’t change. *Nāhuman is still spelt <na-an-kà-hu-ma-an>

The last sound change to take place is shortening/denasalisation of final vowels, which I’ve arbitrarily decided the spelling will lag behind, so once again, the spelling is the same.

The final result in the proper syllabic characters looks like this (reads left to right, no ligatures):

<na-an-kà-hu-ma-an>

/nāhuma/

(i wanted to take a pic of it handwritten on paper but my phone’s camera wouldn’t focus 😭)

[mewling-central]

Niñřī Ñōw ė Nė mëilaw tlėñërėu ñāw āo rrīwijīñej ërarr, pīren përwañan cīrrelabao ořalwa rrīwirāoc. 

Tlė wėñë përwan ořolwirrė īxřilāl tlāomabėulaw wėñë ñālwarėu mëilaw lāe tlibērr ēmyabao ārr rrīwiñëbarr.

Pōi Niñřī Ñōw tlārr mëilozrrė rrīwėrāe ēo, mëilaw rrāe rrīwimīubėu ořalwa përwan wėñās tlëubao cīrrel rrīwiñëlan; pōi Niñřēs Ñūzot wēmwabao ñė rriwëeral.

Nė pīrer rriwëjal, pōi ořolworo përwan wīmwio īriloo rriwëixřilōbbaol.

Pārr, Niñřēs Ñūzot Nė mëilaw wėñërėu ñāw pāz rrīwiñëbėlo.

"The North Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger, when a traveler came along wrapped in a warm cloak.

They agreed that the one who first succeeded in making the traveler take his cloak off should be considered stronger than the other.

Then the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more he blew the more closely did the traveler fold his cloak around him; and at last the North Wind gave up the attempt.

Then the Sun shined out warmly, and immediately the traveler took off his cloak.

And so the North Wind was obliged to confess that the Sun was the stronger of the two."

north-ABS wind-ABS.[TOP] and sun-ABS.[TOP] fear-IPFV.AV.PCP each.other-ABL be-IPFV.PV.PCP who-GEN HES.3-argue-IPFV.PV when-DAT warm-PERL cloak-PERL wrap-PFV.PV.PCP traveller-ABS.[TOP] HES.3-come-IPFV.PV |  all-ABS 3S.ABS.[TOP] cloak-ABS traveler-DAT remove-IPFV.AV.INF win-PFV.AV.PCP 3S.ABS others-ABL fear-IPFV.AV.PCP as consider-IPFV.PV.INF DES-PFV.PV.PCP this-DAT HES.3-agree-IPFV.PV | and.then north-ABS wind-ABS.[TOP] all-DAT force-DAT HES.3-blow-IPFV.PV but fear-IPFV.AV.PCP blow-IPFV.PV.INF HES.3-SBJV-PFV.PV traveller-ADE.[TOP] cloak-ABS 3S.ERG close-PFV.PV.PCP wrap-IPFV.PV.INF HES.3-MIR-IPFV.LOCV | and.then north-ERG wind-ERG[TOP] stop-PFV.PV.PCP try-IPFV.PV.INF HES.3-lose-IPFV.AV| sun-ABS.[TOP] warm-DAT HES.3-shine-IPFV.PV and.then traveller-ERG.[TOP] cloak-ABS wait-IPFV.PV.PCP without HES.3-remove-PFV.AV | that-DAT north-ERG wind-ERG.[TOP] sun-ABS fear-IPFV.AV.PCP 3S-ABL be-IPFV.PV.PCP that-ABS HES.3-admit-IPFV.AV |

[dedalvs]

Random question:

So a while back I read something where someone was talking about how if English spelling were reformed so every sound had a unique symbol that we’d lose the “visual alliteration” of Cape Cod.

I cannot figure out what that means. Are those /k/ sounds not both [k]? The only difference I’ve been able to notice is a feeling of the airstream moving outward in “Cape” and inward in “Cod”, but I can’t tell if that’s due to vowel influence or what.

Let's back up. The "someone" who was talking about this was either (a) wrong, (b) uncooperatively pedantic, or (c) imagining a very specific, non-alphabetic spelling reform of English (e.g. spelling English with logographic or syllabic glyphs).

Assuming (b), the only way that English spelling could be reformed such that the C's in Cape Cod would be different is if the spelling reforming was as sensitive as a narrow IPA transcription. If that was the case, then there are some transcriptions of English that would transcribe the first as [kʰʲ] and the second as [kʰ]. This level is detail is phonologically important for some languages. English is not one of these. A sensible spelling reform would spell those the same, whether C (because all instances of [k] become C) or K (because all instances of [k] become K). A nonsensical spelling reform would actually spell aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops different, but even then, these two would be the same, as they're both aspirated.

The airstream is the same for both (egressive). What you're feeling, I expect, is the very slight movement in tongue position as the initial [k], which is palatalized, moves backward to an unpalatalized position. The reason you feel this is the tongue doesn't have to do anything in between the onset of the first word and the onset of the second. The tongue gets in position for [e], and in this position you can pronounce [k] well enough, then with [p], your tongue doesn't have to do anything; the lips take care of it. This means your tongue body can remain in place. For "Cod", it moves back as the tongue prepares to pronounce [ɑ] (or whatever back vowel you have there). Notice also that the tongue body has to go down, the tongue tip retracting slightly to pronounce [ɑ]. That's all part of it.

Now, assuming (c), yeah, that's indeed going to happen. Consider Japanese katakana. This is how "Cape Cod" is spelled: ケープコッド /keːpu koddo/. The relevant characters—the ones that begin each syllable—are ケ /ke/ and コ /ko/. And, yeah, they're different, so you do lose the visual alliteration. However, what you lose in visual similarity you gain in economy. To write /ka, ke, ki, ko, ku/ in an alphabet you need 6 different letter forms and 10 total glyphs. To write the same thing in katakana you need 5 different letter forms and 5 total glyphs. Consider an old style text message, which had a hard character count. A syllabary allows you to fit more letters in than an alphabet because each character encodes more information. When it comes to sheer character count, then, the Japanese writing system is much more efficient when it comes to writing Japanese than the English Romanization is.

Of course, that's for Japanese. For English it doesn't make as much sense because of our overabundance of consonant clusters. Typing lava in an alphabet takes 4 characters; in a syllabary, it takes 2. Typing straps, though, requires 6 characters in an alphabet and 5 in a syllabary. That doesn't save you a lot space—and a syllabary like Japanese's throws in extra vowels that have to be there, even if they're not pronounced, destroying its efficiency by, essentially, adding extra noise to the signal. Returning to straps, you have 6 characters, and all elements are vocalized. In katakana, you'd have to do ストラプス /sutorapusu/. You save a character with ラ /ra/, but then you have a whole bunch of vowels you have to remember not to pronounce.

Long story short, if you were going to reform the English spelling system, I don't think a syllabary (or even an abugida) makes sense, and a logography would be quite a thing to drop on the unsuspecting populace, even if it would be more equitable. This is why I guessed that what you overheard wasn't (c) and was likely (b).

Anyway, that's my 2¢. Hope it helps.

[gentledilapidatrix]

How do people make syllabaries?? I'm trying to construct a logosyllabary for my balto-slavic conlang, and my mind is melting.

Mine would have separate vowels for ь, ъ, and ѣ alongside hard and soft versions of all the normal vowels... even if I group some together, there are very few single-syllable words in any of the swadesh lists I've been looking at which allow for a convenient pictograph to start with.

My brain is a little wyrm in a metal cage, and every time I learn something new, I bash my head against the bars.. the cage gets bigger, but I get a headache.

[silberlin]

[letterrankingworldchampionship]

We are going to rank 32 different letters from several different alphabets, abjads, abugidas, logographies, syllabaries, and unclear classifications from several different alphabets!!

please vote.

[animeomelette]

Okay, hear me out here:

English syllabary

Every syllable gets a completely different character depending on whether it has primary stress, secondary stress, or is unstressed

We can make reading and writing in Japanese look easy if we try!

Come on Anglos!

Why do we need the Latin alphabet anyway? Clearly this is a much better solution!

[riesenfeldcenter]

Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day!

The rare collection of laws of the Cherokee Nation shown here was published at Tahlequah, the Cherokee Nation’s capital. It was printed in Cherokee using a syllabary adopted by the Nation in 1825. 

The owners of this copy used the page above to list their family members and birthdays. One child, Sequoyah, was likely named after the founder of the Cherokee writing system.