Last update: 2 April 2007
The letters were originally carved in stone or wood, media to which their straight lines and angular shapes were well suited. These runic forms are now rarely used; as softer writing media such as paper have become favoured, more cursive shapes suitable for handwriting have been developed, formalised forms of which are used for printing. The complete alphabet is shown below in its traditional order; each letter is given in runic and print forms, followed by its name and phonetic value in CD.
For brevity, the letters are referred to hereafter by uppercase letters in angle brackets, thus <I> for isa, and <AI AU> for aiko ausa respecively. Dots are used to separate letters in a single word; thus <A.I> represents the sequence of the two letters <A> and <I> as distinct from the single letter <AI>.
Most of the letters had a regular one-to-one correspondence with the phonemes of Classical Dekavurian. The exceptions are <KW> and <NG>, which as shown represent the combinations /kw/ and /ng/, and the two letters <S> and <Z> for /s/, the second of which was used somewhat inconsistently between vowels. The specifically Dekavurian letters <AU> and <AI> originated in the combinations <A + U> and <A + I>, reflecting the partial origin of the CD phonemes /O E/ in the diphthongs /au ai/.
The basic alphabet has been augmented from that used for CD by two diacritics and two letters. The new letters are <Y Ø>, whcih result from combinations of <U O> with a vertical line representing a reduced from of <I>. The diacritic aihwila, literally "little aihwa", commonly represents phonemes resulting from palatalisation; it is derived from a small version of <E> written above the letter, and is represented in the romanisation by an apostrophe. The double-dot diacritic usually represents lengthening of a consonant or vowel, and is shown here by a colon.
Not all orthographies use the diacritics; in particular, the Printers' Guild of the city of Athuncia has a marked preference for digraphs instead.
The palatals /J L/, which occur in NW N WC EC, and the strong trill /R/ in NW N, are usually written <N' L' R'>, but in N sometimes <NN LL RR>, especially when deriving from /nn ll rr/, and in the city of Athuncia <N.AI L.AI>. <R.AI> or, rarely, <R'> are sometimes used in some varieties of EC to represent the /j/ resulting from palatalisation of /r/.
The letter <NG> has largely been replaced by the equivalent digraph <N.G>. It survives only in E, where it represents /NN/ (the regular development of /ng/), and in SE, where it represents /N/.
/b/ is <B> everywhere except in N, in which original /b/ and /w/ merged in /b/ which is variously realised as [b v B] and represented by <B> and <W> depending on its origin; yibo "gift" has <B>, while have "grass" has <W>.
/t/ is always <T> in W SW SE E. In NW N WC EC, where it results from the merger of /t/ and /T/, it is represented by both <T> and <TH>; the choice was formerly largely entomological, but nowadays <T> is preferred and <TH> is generally restricted to the names of people and places. A prominent example is the typical spelliing of Athuncia with <TH> rather than <T>.
The representations of /k g/ and the affricates are the most complicated of the consonants. The correspondence is simplest in SE, in which <K G> represent /k g/ and <T' D' K' G'> are the preferred representations of /ts dz tS dZ/; SW uses the same spellings, although the affricates have been reduced to sibilants at the starts of words and are sometimes represented as such. /k g/ are also represented by <K G> in W E, which do not have affricates.
In NW N WC EC, where /k g/ palatalised before /E e i/, things are more complicated. <K G> before <AI E I> represent /ts dZ/ in NW WC N and /tS dZ/ in EC; <K G> everywhere else in these dialects continue to represent /k g/. /k g/ before front vowels and /j/ in NW N WC EC are rare and usually derive from older /kw gw/, for which reason they are represented by <KW> and the digraph <G.KW>; in EC and sometimes in WC the digraphs <K.H G.H> are preferred.
/dz/ is represented by <Z> always in NW N and usually in EC; the transcription <D'> is found in some southern varieties of EC. Its voiceless counterpart /ts/ is transcribed <TZ> or <T'> in EC, with a parallel distribution. /ts/ in NW N WC, when resulting from palatalisation of /k/ or /t/ before /a O o u/, is usually transcribed <K'>, which has almost completely replaced the older transcription <KJ>.
/dZ/ in NW WC before /a O o u/ continues /dj gj/ and, initially only, /j/; in N it results from /lj/. Regardless of origin, it is represented by <G'> (older <GJ>). /tS/ in NW N WC from various sources is rendered by the digraph <K.G'>. /tS dZ/ in EC before vowel letters other than <I E AI> are written <K.E G.E>; this convention is the origin of the diacritic aihwila.
/T/, which remains in W SW SE E, is always <TH>.
/x/ is transcribed <H>. Although this phoneme has been lost in NW N WC EC, these dialects continue to indicate its former existence initially, since it blocks liaison.
/s/ and /z/ are always <S Z> in W SW SE E. They are transcribed in the same way as in the romanisation in NW N WC EC; thus /z/, which occurs only between vowels and before voiced consonants is <S>, and /s/, is <S.S> intervocalically and <S> otherwise.
/S/ is <S'> in W SW SE and <S.J> in E. In EC it is transcribed <S.C> before <AI E I> and <S.C.E> otherwise, parallelling the representations of /tS/ and /dZ/. In NW N it is sometimes written <S.J> or <S'>, but more usually <H'>. /Z/, found in W SW SE, is <Z'>.
The voiced fricatives [v D G] in N W are predictable allophones respectively of /b m/, /d n/, and /g N/, and thus have no separate transcriptions.
The most straightforward dialect from the point of view of the vowels is NW, in which the vowel system remains largely unchanged from CD; accordingly, the same letters are used with the same values. The same is also true of E, with the exceptions that <AI> now represents /{/ and the new letters <Y Ø> have been introduced for /y 2/. W is only slightly more complicated; the merger of /E O/ with /e o/ leaves traces in older spellings with <AI AU>, although these letters have largely fallen out of use.
In N WC and rural varieties of EC, /E/ has become /je/ and /O/ has become /we wo/ (later /2/ in WC). These combinations are usually transcribed <AI.E AU.E AU.O> to indicate both the original spelling and the contemporary pronunciation; as a result, <AI AU> are the usual representations of /j w/ in these dialects.
The other dialects are all marked by the fronting of /u/ to /y/ and the consequent raising or fronting of the back vowels /O o/; as a result, the development of the orthography shows a tension between retaining entomological information and representing the contemporary pronunciation. The spellings <O U Y> for /o u y/, following the pronunciation, are very common in EC SW SE, especially since they are preferred by the main Printers' Guilds; where they are used, <Ø> is used for /2/. The historically-motivated spellings of <AU O U> for /o u y/ are still sometimes found in SW SE, however, and are accompanied by the otherwise unused <W> for /2/, reflecting the origin of this vowel in these dialects in stressed /we/.
SE, like E, uses <AI> for /{/. This letter is sometimes found in SW, as in W, for older /E/, but is now usually replaced by <E>.
The distinctive spellings of the vowels in WC are largely relics of their origins. /i e a/ are straightforwardly <I E A>, and /o/ (in closed syllables only) is <O>; however, /y/ is <U>, /u/ is <O.U>, and /2/ is <AU.U>.
The diphthongs are all glides to /i u y/ and have various transcriptions according to the choice of letter for the second element. The letters for the full vowels, i.e. <I U Y>, are preferred in NW SW SE, while N WC EC prefer <AI AU>; spellings with <J W> are regarded as archaic. Thus /ai/ may be found written as any of <A.I A.AI A.J>. The nasal diphthongs of NW are transcribed with <NG> between the two elements, thus <A.NG.I A.NG.AI A.NG.J> have all been used for /a~e/.
The long vowels of SW are all indicated with the double-dot diacritic. In W, long /i: a: u:/ are always so marked; long /e: E: O: o:/ are written <E: AI: AU: O:> if <AI AU> are retained for /E O/, otherwise digraphs <A.I A.U> are used for /E: O:/, and <E.I O.U> are sometimes found instead of <E: O:> for /e: o:/.
The double-dot is used in NW N WC EC to indicate stressed vowels which resulted from contractions due to the loss of an intervening consonant, as with <A:> for the common stressed adjectival ending /-a/. The Printers' Guild of Athuncia, however, prefers to indicate the lost consonant (which is almost always /x/ or /g/ in EC) with <H>.
Double consonants remain in EC SE E. In E, they are written with the double-dot diacritic; in Athuncia, in line with the general avoidance of diacritics, they are usually written with double letters, although intervocalic palatal consonants are often written single. In SE, the double-dot is used if the consonant does not carry aihwila, otherwise the consonant is doubled.
