Alternative English Alphabet
Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 11:16 am
Aa - as in "cat"
Áá - in "father"
Bb - as in "bat"
Cc - the c sound in cat
Dd - as in dog
Ðð - the voiced th in "then"
Ee - as in "bell" when stressed. when unstressed it is schwa. when unstressed and at the end of a plural, it is pronounced as the e sound in "roses"
Éé - the vowel sound in "make"
Ff - as in "frog"
Gg - as in "gear"
Hh - as in "hat"
Ii - as in "bit"
Íí - the ee sound in "teeth"
Jj - the y sound in you/young etc, and for palatilized consonants
Ll - as in "long"
Mm - as in "man"
Nn - as in "nurse"
Oo - as in "body"
Óó - the o sound in "ode"
Pp - as in "plant"
Rr - as in "run"
Ss - as in "sell"
Tt - as in "time"
Þþ - the unvoiced th sound in "teeth"
Uu - as in "gut" or "but"
Úú - long, as in the oo in "booed". When followed by a doubled consonant, pronounced short as in the oo in "good"
Vv - as in "vat"
Ww - as in "went"
Yy - the vowel sound (slide) in flight
Zz - as in "hazard"
Well, almost. There are 29 letters there, but as you know there are a lot more sounds in English than just these. Well, there are also a set of digraphs that are treated as single letters
Chch - Pronounced as ch as usually pronounced in English
Cgcg - Old English digraph rehabilitated. Pronounced as English j.
Shsh - Pronounced as sh as usually pronounced in English.
Zhzh - Pronounced as zh as usually pronounced in English
So the complete alphabet with all 34 letters is now:
Aa, Áá, Bb, Cc, Chch, Cgcg, Dd, Ðð, Ee, Éé, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Íí, Jj, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Óó, Pp, Rr, Ss, Shsh, Tt, Þþ, Uu, Úú, Vv, Ww, Yy, Zz, Zhzh
With the old consonant diacritics, words just became too cluttered, so I took the Hungarian route and stuck it out with digraphs. I also introduced Yy inplace of the original ij digraph (borrowed from dutch) because although that looked cool in some places, in others it looked rather awkward.
There are also the same old two digraphs which are not considered separate letters. I just swapped them.
ou - pronounced lau - pronounced like the vowel in "pawn"
In the past, I had used alternately e (as schwa) and é respectively to represent "a" as it seemed nifty. I have since dropped this because it was too conspicuous of a breach of the general rule that e is pronounced that way only when unstressed. So u - stressed schwa - has taken its place.
Also, words ending in é are now rendered with ej.
Forgot to mention, all plurals retain the -s/-es ending. The voicing value of the s is determined by the consonant that precedes it.
Só, it síms tú mí ðat ðis procgect haz ríchd u cenclúzhen at last. Ov córs, som þings stil lúcc u bit aukwerd but ðis, y þinc, reprízents ríl progres.
Áá - in "father"
Bb - as in "bat"
Cc - the c sound in cat
Dd - as in dog
Ðð - the voiced th in "then"
Ee - as in "bell" when stressed. when unstressed it is schwa. when unstressed and at the end of a plural, it is pronounced as the e sound in "roses"
Éé - the vowel sound in "make"
Ff - as in "frog"
Gg - as in "gear"
Hh - as in "hat"
Ii - as in "bit"
Íí - the ee sound in "teeth"
Jj - the y sound in you/young etc, and for palatilized consonants
Ll - as in "long"
Mm - as in "man"
Nn - as in "nurse"
Oo - as in "body"
Óó - the o sound in "ode"
Pp - as in "plant"
Rr - as in "run"
Ss - as in "sell"
Tt - as in "time"
Þþ - the unvoiced th sound in "teeth"
Uu - as in "gut" or "but"
Úú - long, as in the oo in "booed". When followed by a doubled consonant, pronounced short as in the oo in "good"
Vv - as in "vat"
Ww - as in "went"
Yy - the vowel sound (slide) in flight
Zz - as in "hazard"
Well, almost. There are 29 letters there, but as you know there are a lot more sounds in English than just these. Well, there are also a set of digraphs that are treated as single letters
Chch - Pronounced as ch as usually pronounced in English
Cgcg - Old English digraph rehabilitated. Pronounced as English j.
Shsh - Pronounced as sh as usually pronounced in English.
Zhzh - Pronounced as zh as usually pronounced in English
So the complete alphabet with all 34 letters is now:
Aa, Áá, Bb, Cc, Chch, Cgcg, Dd, Ðð, Ee, Éé, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Íí, Jj, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Óó, Pp, Rr, Ss, Shsh, Tt, Þþ, Uu, Úú, Vv, Ww, Yy, Zz, Zhzh
With the old consonant diacritics, words just became too cluttered, so I took the Hungarian route and stuck it out with digraphs. I also introduced Yy inplace of the original ij digraph (borrowed from dutch) because although that looked cool in some places, in others it looked rather awkward.
There are also the same old two digraphs which are not considered separate letters. I just swapped them.
ou - pronounced lau - pronounced like the vowel in "pawn"
In the past, I had used alternately e (as schwa) and é respectively to represent "a" as it seemed nifty. I have since dropped this because it was too conspicuous of a breach of the general rule that e is pronounced that way only when unstressed. So u - stressed schwa - has taken its place.
Also, words ending in é are now rendered with ej.
Forgot to mention, all plurals retain the -s/-es ending. The voicing value of the s is determined by the consonant that precedes it.
Só, it síms tú mí ðat ðis procgect haz ríchd u cenclúzhen at last. Ov córs, som þings stil lúcc u bit aukwerd but ðis, y þinc, reprízents ríl progres.