Non-English Orthography Reform

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Zontas
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Zontas »

Maltese/ Malti

Partly for fun, partly for ease. An apostrophe separates digraphs.

/m/ Mm
/n/ Nn
/p/ Pp
/b/ Bb
/k/ Kk
/g/ Gg
/ʔ/ Qq
/ts/ Cc
/dz/ Zz
/tʃ/ Ċċ/ Tx tx/ Ch ch
/dʒ/ Ġġ/ Dj dj/ Jh jh
/f/ Ff
/v/ Vv
/s/ Ss
/z/ Żż/ Zh zh
/ʃ/ Xx
(/ʒ/) Jj
/ħ/ Hh
/r/ Rr
/l/ Ll
/j/ Yy
/w/ Ww

/ˤ:/ ħ/gh (always after vowels)
/:/ Vowels in long in environments, doubled vowels, doubled consonants.

/∀~ᴀ/ Aa
/ᴀ:/ Aa
/e~ɛ/ Ee
/e:/ Ee
/i~ɪ/ Ii
/i:/ Ii
/ie̯/ Ie ie (no longer a letter)
/o~ɔ/ Oo
/o:/ Oo
/u~ʊ/ Uu
/u:/ Uu
/uo̯/ Uo uo (marginal, inferred from audio clips)

The "for all" symbol means a central near-low vowel. /ɐ/ will represent a back rounded near-low vowel in contrast with /æ/, due to similarities with /ʌ/.

The small capital "a" used by sinologists is what I'm using for the center back vowel known as /ä/ (which I'll use to mean a center-front back unrounded vowel.
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Zontas
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Zontas »

Doitzh Re-do

100% truthful attempt to reform German orthography. An apostrophe separates digraphs. Consonants after a comma shorten vowels. In clusters <j> can be swapped for <h>, except for <Dj dj>, which becomes <Dzh dzh>. /pf/, and /dʒ/ always precede a short vowel, unless indicated by an <h> in between the two sounds.

/p(ʰ)/, -/pʰ/ Pp, pp
/b/, -/p/ Bb, bb
/t(ʰ)/, -/tʰ/ Tt, tt
/d/, -/t/ Dd, dd
/k(ʰ)/, -/kʰ/ Kk, ck/kk
/g/, -/k/ Gg, gg

/p͡f/ Pf pf
/t͡s/ Zz, tz
/t͡ʃ/ Zj zj
/d͡ʒ/ Dj dj

/f/ Ff, ff
/s̬/-, -/s/-, -/s̬/- -/s/ Ss, ss, s
/ʃ/ Sj sj; s before p, t, k
/ʒ/ Gj gj
/x/ Xx, Kh kh, Ch ch
/h/ Hh, hh

/l/ Ll, ll
/r/, -/∀̯/ Rr, rr
/ʋ/ Ww, ww
/j/ Jj, jj
/m/ Mm, mm
/n/ Nn, nn

/ᴀ/, /ᴀ:/ Aa
/ɛ:/ Ää or Ææ
/ɛ/, /e:/ Ee
/ɪ/, /i:/ Ii
/ɔ/, /o:/ Oo
/œ/, /ø:/ Öö or Øø or Œœ
/ʊ/, /u:/ Uu
/ʏ/, /y:/ Üü or Yy

/aj aw oj/ aj, ai before a consonant aw, au before a consonant oj, oi before a consonant

Vowels are strengthened before multiple graphemic consonants when preceding <h> or another vowel. Isolated vowels take -e to lengthen.


Alle menshen sind fray und glaikh and Würde und Rekhten geboren. Sie sind mit fernunft und gewissen begabt und sollen ainandar im Gaist der Brüdarlikhkeit begegnen.

Etruscan/ Rasna


Obviously for fun.

/m/ Mm
/n/ Nn
/pʰ/ Pp
/p/ Bb
/tʰ/ Tt
/t/ Dd
/kʰ/ Kk
/k/ Gg
/t͡s/ Cc
/f/ Ff
/s/ Ss
/ʃ/ Xx, Çç, Śś, Ʃʃ
/r/ Rr
/l/ Ll
/j/ Y y
/w/ Ww

/ᴀ/ Aa
/e/ Ee
/i/ Ii
(/o/) Oo
/u/ Uu

Weltina xatena cu gi en esgi ipa spel ane-ti fulum-kwa.
Last edited by Zontas on 24 Apr 2013 16:21, edited 2 times in total.
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Dormouse559
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Dormouse559 »

Zontas wrote:Fransæs/French

Geminates are doubled graphemes.
What do you mean by geminates? French doesn't have geminate consonants.
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Visinoid »

It can happen for the liquids and nasals.: "grammaire", "illisible", "mourrai"
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Dormouse559 »

Aren't those just orthographic though? Do you know about any minimal pairs?
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Xonen »

Dormouse559 wrote:Aren't those just orthographic though? Do you know about any minimal pairs?
Wikipedia gives il mourrait [ilmuʁːɛ] 'he would die' vs. il mourait [ilmuʁɛ] 'he was dying'... But notes that geminates are rare and their pronunciation is often inconsistent.
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Dormouse559 »

Ugh, French. [>_<] Next I'll find out it has marginally phonemic tones.
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Ear of the Sphinx »

Polish

/m n ɲ/ ‹m n ñ›
/p t ts tʃ tɕ k/ ‹p t ŧ č c k›
/b d dz dʒ dʑ ɡ/ ‹b d đ dž ĝ g›
/f s ʃ ɕ h/ ‹f s š ç h›
/v z ʒ ʑ/ ‹v z ž ĵ›
/w l r j/ ‹w l r j›

/a ɛ ɔ ɨ i u/ ‹a e o ə i u›
/ɔũ/ ‹ō›

Všəsŧə luĝe rođō çe volni i ruvni vzglendem sfojej godnoçci i sfəh prav. Sō oni obdažeñi rozumem i sumjeñem i poviññi postempovac vobeŧ innəh v duhu braterstfa.
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Ambrisio »

Hindi/Urdu (I seriously think it needs a new, unified script):

/a a: ae (this is supposed to be ash) i i: u u: e: E: o: O:/ <a á ä i í u ú e è o ò>
/p p_h b b_h f m/ <p ph b bh f m>
/t t_h d d_h n/ <t th d dh n>
/t` t`_h d` d`_h r` r`_h/ <ŧ ŧh đ đh r̵ r̵h>
/c c_h J` J`_h/ (these are suppose to be palatals) <ç çh j jh>
/k k_h x g g_h q G/ <c/k kh ch g gh q ġ>
/j r l v S s Z z h/ <y r l v sh s zh z h>
Nasalization is marked with <n·>, so "yes" for example is <hán·>.
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by HinGambleGoth »

A nifty, and practical orthography for Scots would be nice, it should be phonemic and should avoid borrowing spelling conventions from English, particularly for vowels.

ȝ should be brought back, to hinder bad spelling pronunciations, menzies = menȝies but I guess z can do for now.

what about diacritics instead of some diagraphs for vowels? bairn could be spelt bærn,hame = hém .aboot would be abút, and so on.
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

A reform to Klingon orthography:

It has always bothered me that capitalization is an integral feature to proper writing of Klingon and that it is kept around, mainly, from a sense of nostalgia and to keep the writing looking "alien." Also, since at the time of its creation, it was hard to type special characters. That last bit is trivially easy now, and nostalgia isn't a good reason, IMO, to keep an odd system. And, IMO, diacritics and letters from other alphabets can make something look more alien than mere CamelCase (yes I know that isn't what it is, but I hate that too [:P] ).

Without further ado:

/m n ŋ/ 〈m n η〉
/pʰ b tʰ ɖ qʰ ʔ/ 〈p b t δ q ϛ〉
/t͡ɬ t͡ʃ d͡ʒ q͡χ/ 〈λ x j ξ〉
/v ʂ x ɣ/ 〈f s h γ〉
/r~ɹ w l j/ 〈r w l ι〉

/ɑ ɛ ɪ o u/ 〈a ė i o u〉

Is this necessarily better? No, probably not. My rationale for some of theses choices is somewhat arbitrary, but I wanted to avoid diacritics in most cases, and substitute Greek. The vowels have dots if they correspond to a "short" English vowel. I chose stigma for the glottal stop due to it's majiscule version's similar appearance to the IPA character. Most other greek was chosen due to some level of sound correspondence.

Mostly this was just for fun!

Examples:

• jupoypu'na'wI'vaD → Jupoıpuϛnaϛwiϛfaδ
• tlhIngan Hol → Λiηan Hol
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Xonen »

HinGambleGoth wrote:A nifty, and practical orthography for Scots would be nice, it should be phonemic
The problem with that is that then you have to choose a dialect whose phonemes to use... The current orthography strives to be diaphonemic, i.e. it may use multiple spellings for the same phoneme in one dialect, if those spellings correspond to different pronunciations in other dialects. For example, the word meat is pronounced like meet in some dialects (as in English), but like mate in others - yet no dialect, AFAIK, has the same pronunciation for meet and mate.
and should avoid borrowing spelling conventions from English, particularly for vowels.
Why? Especially if you want it to be nifty and practical, then using spelling conventions that the speakers are already sort of familiar with makes sense. Furthermore, the current orthography doesn't just borrow spellings from English; a lot of the spellings have a long history behind them, dating back to the times when Scotland was an independent country with Scots as its official language (well, de facto at least, I'm not sure if they had any language laws to that effect back then).
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by HinGambleGoth »

Xonen wrote: The problem with that is that then you have to choose a dialect whose phonemes to use... The current orthography strives to be diaphonemic, i.e. it may use multiple spellings for the same phoneme in one dialect, if those spellings correspond to different pronunciations in other dialects. For example, the word meat is pronounced like meet in some dialects (as in English), but like mate in others - yet no dialect, AFAIK, has the same pronunciation for meet and mate.
How did they do it for Faroese? a lot of dialects there.
Xonen wrote: Why? Especially if you want it to be nifty and practical, then using spelling conventions that the speakers are already sort of familiar with makes sense. Furthermore, the current orthography doesn't just borrow spellings from English; a lot of the spellings have a long history behind them, dating back to the times when Scotland was an independent country with Scots as its official language (well, de facto at least, I'm not sure if they had any language laws to that effect back then).
Well, most of the re-spellings in this thread seem to ignore historical orthographies anyway it seems. Its just that spellings like "aboot" don't seem to have any historical "depth", more like an attempt to spell it using English as a model. Similar problems exist in Sweden where for instance some people write gutnish with å for /o/, but that back vowel shift never happened in that dialect, so it neglects its own orthographic history and shows how strongly Swedish (or in this case English) dominates. One of the reasons Plattdeutsch doesn't get a proper spelling is because people on both sides of the German/Dutch borders employ spelling methods based on their "master languages", Aren't there Finnic languages that are written with Cyrillic? when the same language is also written with roman not far from there? One of the differences between a dialect and language is that a language has uniform written language made for that language, when people write "phonetically" in their own dialect using spelling conventions borrowed from the dominant language you wont get far, you will just speak "bad whatever".
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Xonen »

HinGambleGoth wrote:
Xonen wrote: The problem with that is that then you have to choose a dialect whose phonemes to use... The current orthography strives to be diaphonemic, i.e. it may use multiple spellings for the same phoneme in one dialect, if those spellings correspond to different pronunciations in other dialects. For example, the word meat is pronounced like meet in some dialects (as in English), but like mate in others - yet no dialect, AFAIK, has the same pronunciation for meet and mate.
How did they do it for Faroese? a lot of dialects there.
Not by designing a phonemic orthography, if that's what you mean. The Faroese orthography (like the Scots, admittedly) even contains features that don't correspond to any real distinctions in any current dialect, e.g. <a> vs. <æ>, <i> vs. <y> and <í> vs. <ý>.

Also, Faroese dialects differ much less in this respect than Scots; they tend to have the same phonemes in the same positions, even if the exact way those phonemes are phonetically realized varies.
In [i]The Nordic Languages - An International Handbook of the North Germanic Languages[/i], Arne Torp wrote:[T]he dialectal differences are mostly confined to the phonetic level; phonological differences are rather rare, as are differences in morphology and syntax. The most conspicuous phonological difference is the coalescense of the OWN diphthongs ei and ey on the northern islands; e.g. OWN reyna 'try', bein 'bone' > modern written Far. royna (= /roina/), bein (= mostly /bain/, northern islands /boin/).

Xonen wrote:Why? Especially if you want it to be nifty and practical, then using spelling conventions that the speakers are already sort of familiar with makes sense. Furthermore, the current orthography doesn't just borrow spellings from English; a lot of the spellings have a long history behind them, dating back to the times when Scotland was an independent country with Scots as its official language (well, de facto at least, I'm not sure if they had any language laws to that effect back then).
Well, most of the re-spellings in this thread seem to ignore historical orthographies anyway it seems.
True, but most of them aren't claiming to be "practical", either. [:P] But okay, perhaps I read too much into that adjective. If you're going for an orthography with more historical depth and deliberately ignoring any such petty practical concerns, then that's an entirely acceptable starting point. It's not like any of the orthograhies presented here stand much chance of getting adopted anyway, and what goals you choose to aim for in your thought experiments is, of course, entirely up to you. [:)]
Its just that spellings like "aboot" don't seem to have any historical "depth", more like an attempt to spell it using English as a model. Similar problems exist in Sweden where for instance some people write gutnish with å for /o/, but that back vowel shift never happened in that dialect, so it neglects its own orthographic history and shows how strongly Swedish (or in this case English) dominates.
Why is that a problem, though? If the spelling system works, then who cares what model it's based on? Again, using a model that the speakers are likely to be familiar with seems to me like the most practical thing to do. Historical concerns are really of interest to a small group of language nerds, and I don't see why our interests should override those of the actual speakers of the language.
Aren't there Finnic languages that are written with Cyrillic?
Not currently, as far as I know. There were some experiments in the 30's, before Stalin decided that Russian is good enough for everyone, and had a large proportion of the people literate in any minority language killed for good measure. [:S] These days, the Finnic languages of Russia, namely Karelian, Veps and Votic, are all written (to what small extent they are) in the Latin alphabet.
One of the differences between a dialect and language is that a language has uniform written language made for that language when people write "phonetically" in their own dialect using spelling conventions borrowed from the dominant language you wont get far, you will just speak "bad whatever".
I agree, to an extent, but it's worth noting that this is far from an uncontested view. I know several minority language activists (many with linguistic training) who strongly argue against standardized spellings, precisely because of the risk that such things end up favoring some dialect(s) and others come to be seen as "bad whatever". For example, no-one in their right mind thinks of Pite Sami as "bad Swedish" even though its spelling conventions are largely borrowed from Swedish - but choosing one dialect as a basis for the standard could make other dialects seem like "bad Pite Sami".

Then again, the whole idea that dialects are "bad whatever" is itself kind of outdated, and the general attitude seems to be slowly shifting away from that notion (at least in countries like Finland, Norway and the UK). In fact, it's gotten to the point where calling Scots or Karelian a language can cause more of a negative reaction than just calling it a dialect, presumably because it's perceived as somehow pretentious or whatever.

Also, there's the thing that if people think of something as a "dialect", it suddenly getting it's own standard doesn't automatically mean they'll start accepting it as a "language" now. People on different sides of the Torne river didn't stop understanding each other when Sweden started considering Meänkieli a language distinct from Finnish, after all.

Finally, even if we accept that a standardized spelling is necessary, that doesn't automatically rule out using conventions from the majority language. That's a whole separate issue, AFAICT.
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by HinGambleGoth »

Xonen wrote:, i.e. it may use multiple spellings for the same phoneme in one dialect, if those spellings correspond to different pronunciations in other dialects. For example, the word meat is pronounced like meet in some dialects (as in English), but like mate in others - yet no dialect, AFAIK, has the same pronunciation for meet and mate.
I had diacritics in mind, even though they arent traditionally used in scots, they could "represent" several different realizations, like in Faroese. Its mainly because it looks better than ye ouldie meadivieal diagraphis Borrowing/resurrecting æ isn't that farfetched, since Scottish people seem to adore Scandinavia anyway. The main issue is the limited keyboards.
Why is that a problem, though? If the spelling system works, then who cares what model it's based on? Again, using a model that the speakers are likely to be familiar with seems to me like the most practical thing to do. Historical concerns are really of interest to a small group of language nerds, and I don't see why our interests should override those of the actual speakers of the language.
Do you think I'm interested in this mainly for practical reasons? its mostly because of my nerdhood into Germanic philology and dialects, if anything. seeing ee used for /i:/ and oo for /ʉ:/ really grinds me gears, especially since scots never developed those vowels like English anyway, its just a shit-sandwich as it is now.
Finally, even if we accept that a standardized spelling is necessary, that doesn't automatically rule out using conventions from the majority language. That's a whole separate issue, AFAICT.
Its just that it looks like poorly, comically misspelt English. [D:] Its just ugly
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

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HinGambleGoth wrote:
Why is that a problem, though? If the spelling system works, then who cares what model it's based on? Again, using a model that the speakers are likely to be familiar with seems to me like the most practical thing to do. Historical concerns are really of interest to a small group of language nerds, and I don't see why our interests should override those of the actual speakers of the language.
Do you think I'm interested in this mainly for practical reasons?
Well, I mean, you did kind of say so: [:D]
In [url=http://cbbforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=161545#p161545]this post[/url], you wrote:A nifty, and practical orthography for Scots would be nice
But as I already said, I probably read too much into that adjective.
seeing ee used for /i:/ and oo for /ʉ:/ really grinds me gears, especially since scots never developed those vowels like English anyway
<ee> for /i:/ doesn't really bother me, especially since it did in fact develop in Scots exactly as in English (from Early Scots /e:/). I sort of agree about the <oo>, though; it just doesn't feel right (and of course, lacks historical justification, although for me personally that's not a top priority). But it's what the speakers themselves are accustomed to using, so in the real world we're sort of stuck with it. But again, in a thought experiment you can of course feel free to ignore the real world as much as you like. [:)]
Its just that it looks like poorly, comically misspelt English.
And Estonian looks like comically misspelt Finnish, Faroese like comically misspelled Icelandic, Belarusian like comically misspelled Russian, and so on. It's purely a question of attitude. At least for me, learning to appreciate linguistic differences has greatly decreased the comedy value of, say, Estonian; now I just think of it as another language. And even if there is something inherently funny about Scots, it's the awesome kind of funny. [:P]
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Batrachus »

Why does Piraha use x for [ʔ]? It rips my eyes. I would use q instead.
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Avo »

And I think <q> for /ʔ/ looks stupid. Matter of taste etc
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Xonen »

Avo wrote:And I think <q> for /ʔ/ looks stupid. Matter of taste etc
At least that has some actual precedent in established orthographies... But meh, I think I'd just use <'> as the least ambiguous option.
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Re: Non-English Orthography Reform

Post by Thrice Xandvii »

I use dotless "j." Which is likely weird, but I like it.
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