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https://preview.redd.it/m5hd8gtyczma1.png?width=962&format=png&auto=webp&s=9a00b0c471ee2990fbc01b40dd82afb679c05a41
I mean why do we even need letter K! We already have C! Now a lot of people think, C is the culprit/offender who stole from K but false! It's the reverse. C was always hard in Latin including Old English and all was going well for C until K was included for some incomprehensible reason and copied C. We would be better of if only C was used for hard sound, K was non-existent and Q was used for Ch like in Chinese. The fact that Thorn doesn't exist now but K does is a travesty. K is also an ugly letter and a rude text message. K does C but worse because, K is even silent in the kn and the ck digraph for no reason and its quite rare. I propose to remove K, use C for hard sound and Q for Ch. Getting rid of K would also get rid of that obnoxious KKK hate group.
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Please join this subreddit:
https://www.reddit.com/LetterKsucks/

K is the most useless letter in English and yes I'm correct!
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K is the worst letter by far!
Why do so many people hate C? The real stealer is K! C was always hard in Latin in the first to make the /c/ (Voiceless Velar) sound. The /k/ sound is just a lie and it is covering the fact that C copied K even though its the other way around. C was always hard in Latin and in Old English aswell. Why did English even add K? The fact that K exists is a travesty. K is worse than useless. All it does it copies C and is even incomprehensibly silent in front of N and in the ck digraph.
Now some people say, K is better to use as it is more consisent! Hah! Incorrect
Thorn already existed and it was useful. It was never to be removed. K just does C but worse. It was added for no reason. C was already consisentently a uvular until the letter the letter K got added. All it did was cause the letter C in tragedy. English should never have bothered with that letter.
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Why do so many people think K looks cooler?
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Spelling things with K is just a stupidity and K is a mean text message so spelling things with K looks more evil rather than fun! There is also KKK which is a hate group! I wish the letter K never existed, it's bad letter, and I would remove it in favor of C which will always be hard

It is well known that English spelling is irregular, see how fish could be written as ghoti. And people coming up with reform proposals are very common. That said, I came up with this reform, bear in mind that this is not 100% phonetic (not every sound has an unique symbol, use IPA for that). This is just a draft, and I'd be glad if someone wants to add suggestions. For better visualization, letters from the reform will be between { }, and IPA between / /. Words in Italic.

1. Let's start with the easier changes, the digraphs:

• Ph always represent /f/, so { F } it is. Phylosophy > Fylosofy
• Gh when /f/, becomes { F }, and when silent, is removed. Rough > Rouf Dough > Dou
• Ch when /k/, becomes { K }, and when /t͡ʃ/ becomes { Q }. Choir > Koir Choice > Qoice
• Sh /ʃ/ becomes { C }. Shaft > Caft
• Ck /k/ becomes { K }. Lock > Lok
• Qu /kw/ becomes { KW }. Equal > Ekwal Quote > Kwote
• C as /k/ becomes { K }, as /s/ becomes { S }. Cat > Kat. Scent > Sent

1. Basically, all silent letters are removed, Lock > Lok, Thick > Thik, Knight > Nit* (we'll work on the vowels later).

• Ch can be /x/ in some accents, now becomes { X }. Loch > Lox Bach > Bax
• For the latter to be possible, X now becomes { KS }. Fox > Foks

These two are controversial, even in accents that use /x/, /ks/ is way more common than it. It wouldn't make sense to use one letter to represent a rare sound and two letters to represent a common one. Therefore I'm not sure of it.
So far, We've only used letters already on Latin script, but there are some digraphs I'd like to replace and for that, the use of non-Latin letters is needed.

• Th when voiced /ð/, becomes { Ð, ð }. That > Ðat The > Ðe
• Th when unvoiced /θ/, becomes { Þ, þ }. Thick > Þik Thought > Þout
• Ng /ŋ/ as in song becomes { Ŋ, ŋ }. Song > Soŋ Thing > Þiŋ

I know, I know, some people prefer to keep the digraphs or at most use DH for /ð/. Others suggest to use þ for both voiced and unvoiced TH, there's a whole subreddit dedicated to it: BringBackThorn. But tbh if we differ p/b, t/d, f/v, k/g, well, we should differ /θ/ and /ð/ as well.
That's about it for the consonants. Now we shall enter the hell hole that is the English vowels. We'll use short and long as notation for the vowels, short A is /æ/ (used in words), long A is /eɪ/ (when alone, the name of it).
The short vowels:

• { A } for /æ/. Fat
• { E } for /ɛ/. Let
• { I } for /ɪ/. Bit
• { O } for /ɒ/~/ɔ/. Lot Thought > Þot
• { U } for /ʌ/. But

When a vowel is alone, "I am a man", it gets the long vowel pronunciation, which is like its name I /aɪ/, A /eɪ/. This allow the word "You" to be written as just { U }, more about abbreviations below.
I'll use diaeresis accents because they're cute and symetrical, otherwise, like German, we can add an "e" after the vowel, ä > ae.

• { Ä } for /eɪ/. Fate > Fät
• { Ë } or { Y } for /i/. Feet > Fët, Fyt Sleepy > Slëpë, Slypy (not sure of which one)
• { Ï } for /aɪ/. Light > Lït
• { Ö } for /oʊ/. Boat > Böt
• { Ü } for /ju/~. Few > Fü Through > Þru

I know what you're thinking, will " I " be written as " Ï "? I'd rather not, rest assured, but I also don't want short vowels to have accents (fat > fät, wouldn't be intuitive at all), so we must come up with a rule: Long vowels get diaeresis when inside a word, but don't, when alone). Let's continue

• { Ü } also for /ʊ/. Good > Güd.
• { AU } for /aʊ/. House > Hauz

I told you, this will not be 100% phonetic, /ʊ/ has to be Ü, with the diaeresis, if without, how would we distinguish But and Boot?
On second thought, the apostrophe are very important, differ He'll from Heel, We'll from Wheel, They're from There.

• I'm > { I'm } I've > { I'v } I'd > { I'd } I'll > { I'l }
• You're > { U'r }, and so on
• He'll > { Hë'l }, and so on
• We'll > { Wë'l } and so on

The apostrophe ( ' ) and the dash (-) kind of separates the letter, and thus it gets its long sound. { I'm } /aɪm/ not /ɪm/. E-mail would be { E-Mäl } (E is isolated by the dash).
Abbreviations:

• The > Ð
• Are > r
• To > t
• And > n
• You > U

The name of the letters will end in schwa, B is pronounced /bə/, C is /ʃə/, D is /də/, etc. If someone asks "How do you spell 'man'?". In this reform "Man" stays the same, so you'd say: "/mə/, /eɪ/, /nə/".
Examples:

You're the man who gave hope to me
Ur ð man hü gäv höp t më
Ur ð man hue gaev hoep t mee

​

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Ð kwik braun fox(ks) jumps över ð läzë dog.

​

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Ol hümn bëiŋz r born frë n ëkwal in dignitë n rïts. Ðä r endaud wiþ rizn n koncns n cüd akt twordz wun anuðr in a spirt of bruðrhüd.

Well, for schwas I have 4 approaches

• Use Y for schwa (and therefore Ë for /i/). Over /oʊvə > Övyr. About /əbaʊt/ > Ybaut. Under /ʌndə > Undyr. Less etymological.
• Use Ë for schwa (and therefore Y for /i/). Over > Övër. About > Ëbaut. Under > Undër.
• Maintain the original vowel even if it's schwa'd. Over > Över. About > Abaut. Under /ʌndə > Under.
• Not write schwa at all. Over > Ovr. About > 'bout(?)

For the last two, either Y or Ë would be unused in this reform (Only one for /i/).
Therefore, the alphabet is as follows:
A = /eɪ/ when alone, /æ/ in words.
Ä = /æ/ when alone (its name), /eɪ/ in words.
B = /b/
C = /ʃ/
D = /d/
Ð = /ð/
E = /i/ when alone, /ɛ/ in words.
Ë = Schwa? /i/ in words?
F = /f/
G = always /g/, as in goose
H = /h/
I = /aɪ/ when alone, /ɪ/ in words.
Ï = /ɪ/ when alone (its name), /aɪ/ in words.
J = /ʒ/ and /d͡ʒ/, as in measure, and giant.
K = /k/
L = /l/
M = /m/
N = /n/
Ŋ = /ŋ/
O = /oʊ/ when alone, /ɒ/~/ɔ/ in words.
Ö = /ɒ/~/ɔ/ when alone, /oʊ/ in words.
P = /p/
Q = /t͡ʃ/, as in Catch
R = /
S = /s/
T = /t/
Þ = /θ/
U = ~/ju/ when alone, /ʌ/ in words.
Ü = /ʌ/ when alone. ~/ju/ in words.
V = /v/
W = /w/
X = /ks/
Y = /waɪ/ when alone? /i/ in words? Schwa?
Ÿ = /i/ when alone? /waɪ/ in words?
Z = /z/
To summarize, these are all the changes ranged from easiest and most familiar, to the ones most revolutionary and crazy:

1. Name of letters end in schwa
2. Remove silent letters
3. Replace digraphs (only Latin letters)
4. Replace digraphs (non Latin letters for th and ng)
5. Contractions
6. Abbreviations
7. The vowels and the schwa issue

And yes, "Knight" and "Night" would both be written Nït. "Sight" and "Site" would both be written Sït. Just as in speech, the context helps you with the meaning.
That's it, let me know what you guys think. I'm torn between Y and Ë for /i/ and the schwa thing. Btw sorry for bad english, not my 1st lingo.
Edit 1: Added alphabet list.
Edit 2: Bring back apostrophe in contractions.

Apologies for weird formatting, I've copy+pasted this from another document.
Note: This is for fun only and is not a serious proposal for a spelling reform. I am open to feedback and corrections. I am a linguistics student - I am not (yet) qualified in the field so I will very probably make mistakes. The intention here is to create a system that is realistic and aesthetically pleasing to me. The reason for me making this now is that I am no longer happy with my previous attempt.
The Alphabet
A B C Ċ/CH D Ð/DH E F G Ȝ/GH H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Þ/TH Z Æ/AE
CG CK SC SĊ/SCH HW ZC ZĊ/ZCH
Optional: Ᵹ Ȝ/GH Ƿ Ꝥ Ꝧ
This form of writing uses a system similar to other Germanic languages where long vowels are shown with a single consonant following and short vowels are shown with double consonants following. There are some exceptions for aesthetic, historical, or grammatical purposes.
Vowels
The values of the vowels are as follows (short/long): A - /ʌ/, /ɑː/ E - /ɛ/, /eː/ I - /ɪ/, /iː/ O - /ɒ/, /ɔː/ U - /ʊ/, /uː/ Y - /ə/ (Always Short) Æ - /æ/ (Always Short)
·These have been chosen to show the underlying vowels instead of the phonetic realisation. This form of writing is rhotic which means that certain values found in non-rhotic dialects may not be shown here, e.g “Kerb” > “Kyrb” /kɜːb/ or /kɚːb/. ·Vowels at the end of a word are pronounced as a long vowel with the exception of ‹a› and ‹e›. ‹a› can be used for /ə/ instead of /ʌ/ in certain positions such as the end of a word or in situations where ‹y› may appear unusual. ·/ɔː/ and /əu/ are not distinguished as I could not find any minimal pairs between them that weren’t cleared up with using ‹r› for non-rhotic speech, though if I’m wrong, ‹ou› can be used for this. ·‹e› is silent at the end of certain words and is used to show a long vowel if the following consonants cannot be doubled for aesthetic or historical reasons. ·the diphthong /ei/ is written as ‹ej›. ·If a vowel is long in an unexpected position, a macron ◌̄ can be used. ·If a vowel is short in an unexpected position, a grave ◌̀ can be used. ·If it is necessary to show stress, an acute ◌́ can be used.
Consonants
All consonants not shown have the same sound as the corresponding IPA character. The remaining consonants are: C - /tʃ/ before i, e, or y. Otherwise /k/. (e.g “Church” > “Cyrċ”, “Cold” > “Cold”) Ċ - /tʃ/ in other positions. Ð - /θ/ or /ð/ after a long vowel. Occasionally /ð/ in minimal pairs. (e.g “Seething” > “Siðing”, “Thy” > “Ðaj”) Ȝ - /x/ in dialectal words or loanwords. Likely to be pronounced as /k/ in dialects without the sound. Q - /kw/ in latinate loanwords as ‹Qu›. (e.g “Equal” > “Iquall”) X - /ks/ at the end of a word unless it is added to another word ending in /k/. (e.g “Six” > “Six”, “Seeks” > “Sics”) Þ - /θ/ or /ð/ after a short vowel or in any other position.
·The dark and light “L” sounds are not distinguished. ·The voiced and voiceless “Th” sounds are only distinguished in minimal pairs, which is rare. The Main function of having both Þ and Ð is to distinguish long and short vowels.
Optional Characters Some characters listed are not necessary but are permitted. Optional characters are: Ᵹ - Same as ‹g› (Stylistic choice) Ƿ - Same as ‹w› (Stylistic choice) Ꝥ - Used as an abbreviation for “That”, but not when stressed as /’ðæt/, only as /’ðət/. Ꝧ - Used as an abbreviation for “Through”. ⁊ - Same as ‹&› for “And”, if you wish to use it (Stylistic choice)
Digraphs and Compatibility
I have given two forms for certain characters. This is due to the fact that many users will not be able to readily access those, such as Ȝ or Þ. The single characters are preferred as this can prevent confusion, e.g “Naithudd” (Knighthood) cannot be written as *Naiþud.
The digraphs shown in the second line have the following values: CG - /dʒ/ CK - /k/ after a short vowel, instead of *kk or *cc SC - /ʃ/ before i, e, or y. SĊ - /ʃ/ before any other vowel. HW - /ʍ/, though most will pronounce it as /w/ ZC - /ʒ/ before i, e, or y. ZĊ - /ʒ/ before any other vowel.
Other
·In certain verb forms, an apostrophe is used in place of the ‹e› that would occur in real writing, e.g “He lived” > “Hi liv’d”. ·An apostrophe may also be used for a glottal stop in dialectal forms, e.g “Water” > “Wo’yr”. ·Apostrophes are still used for possession and contractions. ·Names and loanwords from other scripts are suggested to be transliterated, e.g “Miyamoto Shigeru” > “Mijamoto Scigeru” , but names from other languages in the Latin script are to be kept the same. ·I am still unsure of what to do for word-final /s/, as it may cause confusion for the letter ‹s› to stand for both /s/ and /z/ at the end of a word. I experimented with ẞ and Ꟗ/ſs (Middle Scots S) but was not satisfied with the look or the accessibility (in the case of Middle Scots S). An example would be “Once” > “Wanß” or “WanꟖ” or “Wanſs”.
Example
Universal declaration of human rights - Article 1. Original: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Current Attempt: Ol hjumynn bijings ar born fri ⁊ iquall inn digniti ⁊ raits. Þej ar indaud wiþ rizyn ⁊ conscyns ⁊ sċud æckt tuwords wan ynaþyr in a spirit ov braþyrhudd.
Previous Attempt: Åll hjúman bíings ár bårn frí and ícwall in dignití and ráits. Ðéi ár índæud wið rízan and conscan’s and scud æct tuwårds wan anaðar in a spirit ov braðahud.
The king and the god.
Original: Once there was a king. He was childless. The king wanted a son. He asked his priest: "May a son be born to me!" The priest said to the king: "Pray to the god Werunos." The king approached the god Werunos to pray now to the god. "Hear me, father Werunos!" The god Werunos came down from heaven. "What do you want?" "I want a son." "Let this be so," said the bright god Werunos. The king's lady bore a son.
Current Attempt: Wans þer wyz a king. He wys ċaildlys. Þy king wontidd a sann. Hi æsk’d his prīst: “Mej a sann bi born ty me!” Þy prīst sedd ty þy king: “Prej ty þy godd Werunos.” Þy king yprōċ’d þy godd Werunos ty prej nau ty þy godd. “Hir mi, faðyr Werunos!” Þy god Werunos kejm daun frym hevvyn. “Hwott dù ju wonnt?” “Aj wonnt a sann.” “Lett þiss bi so,” sedd þy brait godd Werunos. Þy king’s lejdi bor a sann.

Digraphs are the two letters which produce a different sound when pronounced together. Some digraphs include:
Th, Ph, Gh, Ch, Ck, Mb, Qu, Wh, Oo etc
Perhaps a Gematria system could be incorperate these sounds?

As it is well known, english is a germanic language with a large component of borrowed words and influences from romance languages (mainly old french). The result of this interaction is a great part of the vocabulary having an quite awkward pronounciation - in relation to it's origin. Without mentioning the amount of vowel change the English language has gone through the last 500 hundred years, the problem is settled by itself. So just for fun, I would like to introduce my idea of an english spelling reform.
One of the main points is the source of the changes. As it is indicated by the introduction, my main point is basing the majority of the changes in romance and germanic languages. I never saw proposals of spelling reform using the orthography of the closest languages to english as a base, so I was a bit tempted to put this idea into practice. Another important consideration is that I tried to polish as much as I could for the new orthography to use accents as little as possible, for it not be that hard to write in a keyboard or in a phone. Now, going to the proposal by itself, let's start by consonants, a simpler case to deal.
PS: phonemes or coarticulations will be written with / /, while letters and digraphs will be marked as {}.
​
- { c } when like / s / became { s }, when like / k / became { k }.
- { g } when like / g / stayed as { g }, when like / dʒ / became { gh }.
- { j } was resignified, now representing the phoneme / j / instead of /dʒ/ and substituting { y }.
- { k } will always represent the consonant / k /, without exceptions.
- The digraph {qu} now solely represents the coarticulation /kw/.
- { s } now solely represents the phoneme / s /, with / ʃ / being represented solely by {sh}, / z / solely by { z } and / ʒ / solely by the new digraph {zh}.
- { t } now solely represents the phoneme / t /, with / ʃ / being represented by {sh}.
- { w } is now a consonant-only letter, being substituted by vowels when in diphthongs.
- { x } now always represents the coarticulations /ks/ or /gz/.
- { y } became a vowel-only letter (discussed later) and it's consonant role was taken by { j }.
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In this phase, with a base change model in hand all the redundent digraphs by the established before standards were removed, such as ck, ss, ll, mm, etc. In this model, there is no phoneme being represented with double consonants, nor with a combination other than {consonant} + h. To represent then the incredible range of english consonants, some digraphs needed to be added or resignified:
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- {gh} now solely represents the articulation /dʒ/.
- {sh} will always represent the consonant / ʃ /.
- {th} will always represent the consonant / θ /.
- {zh} was introduced and will always represent the consonant / ʒ /.
- {dh} was introduced and will always represent the consonant / ð /.
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With a great range of the english consonants treated, it's time to embrace the most complex part, the vowels. The discussions on some english vowels (i.e. if they exist or not, if they are pronounced in X way, etc.) won't be taken onto account, as I don't have a great academic knowledge in this field. Note however that this post can be updated eventually or reposted with new features.
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- { a } now can represent only the vowels / a / and / ɑ /.
- { e } now can represent only the vowel / ɛ /.
- { i } now can represent only the vowels / ɪ / and / i /.
- { o } now can represent only the vowels / ʌ /, / ɔ / and / ɒ /.
- { u } now can represent only the vowel / u /.
- { y } now represents the vowel / ə /.
- {ae} now represents the vowel / æ /.
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PS: {ae} can be written as {æ} if wished.
​
In this new system, not just { y } became a vowel but also the other vowel letters were adapted to resemble not just common pronunciations of them, but also to be able to write the most common vowels in english without needing any accent. Talking about them, the umlaut or trema (¨) was added as the the ultimate accent of this reform.
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- { ä } was added to represent any central vowel that isn't / ə /, such as /ɐ/, /ɜ/ and /ɘ/.
- { ë } was added to represent the vowel / e /.
- { ï } was added to represent the vowel / i / (when not long).
- { ö } was added to represent the vowel / o /.
- { ü } was added to represent the vowel / ʊ /.
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One more important step is to revise the vowel digraphs that exist, the diphthongs and how they are written. The general rule is to write the diphthong present in the digraph or in the single vowel whenever it is present using it's composing vowels. However, when a digraph is pronounced just as a sole vowel then it should be written as it's correspondent simple vowel.
PS: in this case, as diphthongs like /eɪ/ and /oʊ/ are too common, there is no need to put an accent into the true correspondent vowel letter.
​
- /eɪ/ is written as {ei}.
- /aɪ/ is written as {ai}.
- /oʊ/ is written as {ou}.
- /ɔɪ/ is written as {oi}.
- /aʊ/ is written as {au}.
PS: this part can be expanded to represent the diphthongs of any dialect that you wish to, the only rule is as showed before - decompose into the simple vowels, and do not use accents unless extremely necessary.
​
Finally, now talking about long vowels. The solution to them was quite simple: doubling the short correspondent vowel to represent the long version.
​
- /a ː / is written as {aa}.
- /e ː / is written as {ee}.
- /i ː / is written as {ii}.
[...]
​
PS: {ee} and {oo} were resignified, as shown.
​
Now it is time to put this system into action with some examples:
​
- reap becomes riip.
- reason becomes riizyn.
- change becomes cheingh.
- rise becomes raiz.
- choose becomes chuuz.
- international becomes intyrnaeshynol.
- present becomes prezynt.
- theirs becomes dhers.
- measure becomes mezhyr.
- yellow becomes jelou.
​
... and the list goes on. I've included in the post an image of an english sample text and it's new version.
​
By no means this system is perfect, but it was a fun experience to create it and to think about all of it's mechanics - it has suffered so many changes to reach this point. Thank y'all for reading, I hope that you found it at least interesting.

This is my spelling reform proposal. And unlike all the other ones this doesn't chainge the lůk of the English langwige raddickally. Oanly one new letter is added, the Ů/ů, pronounced /uː/. The reason for this letter is, that the oald English U has two pronunciations. To distingwish them, the /uː/ gets a circle, because its tenz form sounds like oo. Ů may also be written as uu.
Voůel to sound correspondence:
A: [æ], [eɪ], [ɑː], [ɛə]
E: [ɛ], [iː], [ɜː], [ɪə]
I: [ɪ], [aɪ], [ɜː], [aɪə]
O: [ɒ], [oʊ], [ɔː], [ɔː]
U: [ʌ], [juː], [ɜː], [jʊə]
Ů: [ʊ], [uː], /, [ʊə]
Y: [i]
These four forms are the lax, tenz, heavvy and tenz-r forms. The tenz form occurs in syllables without a coda or can be created by attaching an e to the end of the syllable, except after a C/G, which oanly chainges the latter’s pronunciation. The lax form occurs in syllables with a coda that is not Gh or before a duble consonant / ch/sh/etc. The heavvy form occurs if the syllable coda is an Gh, and the tenz-r form by attaching an E to a heavvy syllable. A is also pronounced tenzly before L. -se [z] becums -z. É, E with an acute is always [e].
Thére are also digraphs, listed below.
Sound to voůel correspondence:
[æ]: A1
[eɪ]: A2, Ai, Ay
[ɑː]: A3
[ɛə]: A4
[ɛ]: E1, Ea1
[iː]: E2, Ea2, Ee
[ɜː]: E3, Ea3, I3, U3
[ɪə]: E4, Ea4, Ee-r
[ɪ]: I1
[i]: Y
[aɪ]: I2, Ye
[aɪə]: I4
[ɒ]: O1
[oʊ]: O2, Oa, Ow
[ɔː]: O3, O4, Au, Aw, Oa-r, Ou-r
[ʌ]: U1
[juː]: U2, Ew
[jʊə]: U4, Ew-r
[ʊ]: Ů1
[uː]: Ů2, Oo
[ʊə]: Ů4, Oo-r
[aʊ]: Ou, Oů (<- from Ow)
[aʊə]: Oů-r, Ow-r
[e]: É
[eə]: É-r
Consonants:
C: [s] before front voůels (e, i, y), [k] elzwhére
Ch: [tʃ]
Ck: Duble k
G: [dʒ] before front voůels, [g] elzwhére
Gg: [g]
Gh: [g] initially, else silent
Gu: [g] before front voůels, [gw] elzwhére
J: [dʒ]
K: [k] normally, silent before initial n
N: [ŋ] before G or K, [n] elzwhére
Ng: [ŋ] finally
Ph: [f]
S: [s] normally and -s after voiceless, [z] between voůels and -s after voiced
Sc: [s]
Sch: [sk]
Sh: [ʃ]
Tch: [tʃ]
Th: [θ], [ð]
-tial: [ʃiəl], -tion: [ʃən]
W: [w] normally, silent before R
Wh: [ʍ] or [w], depends on accent
X: [z] initially, [gz] after e and before voůel, [ks] elzwhére
Y: [j]
Zh: [ʒ]
Evrything elz is pronounced as written.
Speshal rules: “The” chainges pronunciation, but not spelling before voůel, “A”, “Are”, “By”, “Of”, “One” and “To” (maybe more) stay the same. Affixes don’t inflůence spelling (e.g., “does” stays the same). Names, affixes and loanwirds don’t chainge.

This'll be a long one, so those of you who are so kind as to read, or even skim, just a portion of this through, bear with me.

Background

Varamm started as an attempt at Speedlang Challenge 8½ by u/Anhilare last August. I put in about 10 days work and got maybe 2/3 of the way to being able to translate some sentences before I was due to move into my new apartment for school and was too busy to finish in time. I took a hiatus of a couple months to get settled into school life and have been working on it like any of my other conlangs ever since: slow and relaxed. I finally think Varamm is to a point that I'm happy to share it. Given that the challenge had some specific requirements, I'll intersperse how I addressed them throughout this introduction to Varamm. Firstly....

Locale and Influences

The challenge specifically outlined that the speedlang was to be an isolated language far in the mountains of any range of our choosing and that the surrounding natlangs had to have some influence on the speedlang. I chose the wet (southern) Andes as my mountain range. My style or preferred method of conlanging already leans pretty heavily on stealing from natlangs and marrying their different features together into something unique so I set about making notes of the surrounding natlangs: primarly Mapuche, Quechua as well as a little Spanish and Tehuelche & Ona. I also included Rapa Nui in the list as a wild card due to it's connections (albeit colonial) with Peru and by extension Quechua.
After I picked up the conlang again post school move, I also included Malagasy to round out my Oceanic influence, some Hebrew and Arabic, and some Georgian as another wildcard from another mountain range. Barring Malagasy, I also have friends who can speak these languages so I can pick their brain should I ever find myself lacking in resources. The Malagasy and Semitic influences are mostly there for something for me to lean on syntactically, and Georgian mostly exists as a source for me to steal words from nowadays.
Due to this shift away from the speedlang and turning this into a personal artlang, Varamm has also since been subsumed into the conworld that my other major conlangs all exist in. Varamm now occupies a mountainous region neighbouring Tokétok's vast temperate rainforests, but they're wholly unrelated to each other, barring the beginnings of a sprachbund. I had had a conlang planned for this region for ages and the region was inhabited by a race of derived caprinae (goats). Some of the initial notes I had on this culture have weedled their way into Varamm.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal	m mː	n̪ n̪ː		(ɳ)	ŋ ŋː	(ɴ)
Plain Stop	p	t̪		ʈ͡ʂʳ ʈ͡ʂʳː	k	q	(ʔ)
Ejective Stop	p'	t̪'			k'	q'
Unvoiced fricative		s̪		ʂʳ ʂʳː	x		h
Voiced fricative	v vː	z̪	ɹ̝	ʐʳ ʐʳː
Vibrant			ɾ	(ɽ)		ʀ
Approximant		l̪ l̪ː			w

Allophony:

• [ɳ] is an allophone of [n] and [ɴ] of [ŋ] before their respective place series.
• [ɽ] only really still exists for conservative speakers, it was the original rhotic whence the retroflex and alveolar series evolved.
• [ʔ] appears before otherwise vowel initial words but has no bearing on morphophonology.
• [x] has largely merged with [h] but the contrast is still maintained in the orthography and fortition patterns as you'll see below.
• [ɹ̝] can be geminate or co-occur with a tap: [ɾ͡ɹ̝̊]. It evolved from the old geminate [ɾ ~ ɽ] and only patterns as a geminate.
• [ʀ] patterns as a geminate in coda position.
• Word final geminates degeminate but still affect prosody.

​
Rhotics and Contrasts:
One of the requirements of the initial speedlang challenge was to have more than 2 rhotics. Varamm arguably has 3-6 rhotics, depending on how you analyse it: /ɾ/, /ɹ̝/ & /ʀ/, and /ʂʳ/, /ʐʳ/, and /ʈ͡ʂʳ/. They all evolved from the old rhotic in some way, largely still pattern in the same way, and are phonemically contrastive from each other. The latter 3 retroflex consonants are transcribed with ◌ʳ to reflect their rhoticity; their old non-rhotic counterparts have largely merged with them.
Another requirement was to make contrasts not found in the surrounding the languages. The rhotics already cover this, but so does the presence of the voiced fricatives, to some extant. Also, so far as I'm aware, none of my initial sourcelangs contrast geminate consonants at all. The Chonan languages might, but I imagine that's mostly because they allow a lot of clustering, presumably allowing for gemination in the process.
​
Vowels

	Front	Back
High	ɪː	ʊː
Mid	ɛ	ɔ
Low	æː	a

This can be analysed as a 3 vowel system with /e/, /o/, and /a/ with length wherein the short counterparts are lowered and the long counterparts are raised. Making most of the vowels lax was intentional and takes cues from many of my initial sourcelangs.
​
Allophony and Diphthong Resolution:
Only short vowels may appear after uvulars, and long vowels will become their short counterparts should the come to appear after a uvular. Meanwhile, only long vowels may appear after /ʈ͡ʂʳ/ in certain contexts. Historic \j* merged with /ʈ͡ʂʳ/ and only long vowels may follow this segment.
Varamm does not allow for diphthongs. Historically, rising diphthongs would have been resolved with a short vowel plus [j] or [w] but these sounds have shifted. Now, rising rounded diphthongs are realised as short vowels + /v/ and rising unrounded diphthongs as short vowels + /ʈ͡ʂʳ/. Meanwhile, falling and centring diphthongs are realised as long vowels + /ɾ/; this was motivated by the difference between rhotic and non-rhotic speakers of English (compare 'near' [nɪə] vs. [nɪr]) and under influence from Tokétok.
​
Phonotactics, Cluster Restrictions, and Resolutions
The challenge stipulated that there must be strict cluster restrictions. I'll spare you the chart and summarise it along with the general phonotactics.
The basic, maximal syllable structure is CCVK wherein both V and K can be long. K here represents a class of consonants that includes sonorant and retroflex consonants and /v/, the latter two of which evolved from sonorants in this position. Since only K may be geminate, geminate consonants may only appear syllable finally. In general, onset clusters must appear in this order: nasal - stop - fricative - approximant; like classes of consonants may not appear together. The specifics of what clusters are legal or how they resolve are as follows (for this context, I am not including the retroflex consonants under rhotics):

• Nasal consonants can appear before any homorganic consonants, barring the approximants and dorsal fricatives.
  • Before approximants, both /m/ and /ŋ/ can appear, but not /n/.
• Ejectives may not appear before anything.
• Plain stops may appear before /v/ (barring /p/), voiceless fricatives, and approximants.
  • /p/ + dorsal fricatives resolve to /p/.
  • Dorsal stops + dorsal fricatives resolve to the fricative.
• /ʈ͡ʂʳ/ may appear before /v/, /ʀ/, and /w/, and it takes over any other subsequent consonants, barring an illegal /l/.
• /v/ may appear before any approximant.
• Sibilants may only appear before rhotics and they resolve to retroflex sibilants.
• Dorsal fricatives + rhotics resolve to /ʀ/.
• Dorsal fricatives + /l/ resolve to /ɹ̝/, and an epenthetic vowel is inserted where necessary.

​
Prosody
Primary stress in Varamm is determined with morae. Onsets carry no weight, short vowels and codas carry a weight of 1, and long vowels and codas carry a weight of 2. As such, a word in Varamm could theoretically have up to 4 morae, but this is rare. Primary stress falls on the antepenultimate mora, wherever that may lie in the word. Secondary stress is trochaic and right-branching and defaults to the first syllable of a word so long as it's not too close to the primary stressed syllable. Should the word have a heavy prefix (with 3-4 morae), then that prefix will take secondary stress, but only if the initial syllable of the root is not also heavy.
​
Reduplication
Varamm employs Malagasy style reduplication as part of its grammar. This involves reduplicating the initial mora of a root, appending it as a prefix, and possibly metathesising the initial cluster of the root or fortifying the initial consonant of the root. This metathesis occurs with many prefixes and only occurs when the cluster initially exists as a CK cluster and the resulting KC cluster is legal. The fortition patterns are as follows:

Lenis	Fortis
l	z̪
ɾ	z̪
z̪	ʐʳ
s̪	ʈ͡ʂʳ
ʂʳ	ʈ͡ʂʳ
w	v
x	k
h	p

Another requirement of the challenge was to have a gaping gap in phonology and morphology. My phonology gap exists in the fortition patterns, however it's not the widest of gaps. If you consider that [x] has merged with [h], then in spoken language [h] can fortify to either [k] and [p] depending on the word, and [ʐʳ] doesn't fortify despite that the other sibilants do. I don't really care that I strictly meet all the requirements anymore, but they did still guide me.
​

Romanisation

I developed two similar orthographies for Varamm, hereby termed long-form and short-form. The long-form uses digraphs where the short-form uses diacritics. In general, I usually use a mix: I prefer the short-form vowels and the long-form consonants. Using short-form consonants would be mostly for use in a scribal shorthand; using long-form vowels would be mostly for use in teaching. Where there are two conventions in use, they shall appear as [long-form]/[short-form].

Graph	Value	Graph	Value	Graph	Value
a	a	m	m	s	s̪
aa/â	æː	n	n, ŋ/_K	sŝ	ʂʳ
e	ɛ	ng/n̂	ŋ	t	t
g/j	x	o	ɔ	t'	tʼ
gĝ	ʀ	p	p	tt̂	ʈ͡ʂʳ
h	h	p'	pʼ	oo/û	ʊː
ee/î	ɪː	q	q	v	v
k	k	q'	qʼ	w	w
k'	kʼ	r	ɾ	z	z̪
l	l̪	rr̂	ɹ̝	zẑ	ʐʳ

Monographs are doubled when geminate, and ⟨sr⟩, ⟨tr⟩, and ⟨zr⟩ written as ⟨ssr⟩, ⟨ttr⟩, and ⟨zzr⟩ when geminate. My use of ⟨î⟩ and ⟨û⟩, despite note having ⟨i⟩ and ⟨u⟩, is mostly stylistic and it serves as a greater visual reminder of their qualities. The ⟨◌̂⟩ would've evolved from a superstoried ⟨r⟩, similar to how ⟨ñ⟩ evolved, before being used as a more general diacritic. Also having both ⟨g⟩ and ⟨j⟩ for /x/ is mostly because I couldn't decide which I preferred so I figured I'd just use both and ascribe the more slender one of the two to short-form.
​

Morphology

Nominal Morphonology
Varamm distinguishes 4 classes, 3 cases, and 3 numbers. The latter 2 and definiteness are discussed below, but the class system will be discussed later as part of semantics.
​
Cases:
The basic erg/abs case system evolved from an old set of particles that connected the verb with the noun directly following it. Given that Varamm is VOS, this resulted in a marked absolutive, one of the requirements of the challenge. The cases are marked by a prefix that supersedes any plural marking (another gaping gap as previously mentioned) and they agree for noun class. The absolutive prefixes are qo-, la-, se-, and zo- at their simplest, but they force metathesis of following CK clusters and combine with initial vowels in different ways.
Meanwhile, the genitive case evolved from a set of pronouns which became procliticised. These also agree for class with the forms l(e)-, nk(o)-, s(a)-, and r(e)-. Meanwhile, the genitive pronouns encliticise onto the nouns that they possess.
​
Numbers:
Plurality is formed through the reduplication system mentioned above. As just mentioned, since plurality marking is superseded in the absolutive, these arguments are largely unmarked for number. However, some nouns exist as natural duals for those that come in pairs, such as horns or shoes. These words can take the singulative suffix -gû, which supersedes any definiteness marking, and their plural forms pluralise the pair, not the individual.
​
Definiteness:
Similarly to other nominal marking, definite markers agree for class. These are suffixes and are often needed in certain contexts to distinguish between different, otherwise unmarked classes, namely in possessive and copular constructions. Most of the definite suffixes change form after a vowel, but their usual forms are -amm, -etr, -gî, and -arr.
​
Demonstratives and Deixis:
Varamm distinguishes 4 degrees of deixis in its demonstratives: proximate, medial, immediate, and distal. Proximate describes things near to the speaker, immediate near to the listener, medial between them, and distal far away from them both. The demonstratives also agree for class. I have yet to decide how/where exactly they appear with nouns, but they are relevant to the verb system:

	Proximate	Medial	Immediate	Distal
Summital	katr	trerr	ngarr	rerr
Arboreal	karr	tvetr	ngetr	retr
Basal	kav	twa	ngav	rav
Transversal	gre	tre	ram	ren

​
Verbal Morphology
Verbs mark 2 aspects, 6 tenses, agree for subject plurality, and take an obligatory post-verbal demonstrative to mark tense and subject class agreement.
​
Aspects:
Varamm uses what I call inverse perfectivity to mark aspect on its verbs. As the name might suggest, the 2 aspects are perfective and imperfective, but rather than either being a marked form, different verbs have either aspect as their default aspect and are marked for the other. What makes this an inverse system is that the marker is the same for both. The marker is ne(t)-.
What governs a verbs default aspect is based on a requirement from the challenge to have verbs treated differently depending on lexical aspect or aktionsart. I settled on distinguishing manner verbs from result verbs. Manner verbs describe a process, how something is done, whilst result verbs describe an outcome, what came of what was done. As you might expect, manner verbs are imperfective by default, and result verbs are perfective.
To illustrate this concept, consider the verbs 'to wipe' and 'to break' in English. 'To wipe' describes a manner of cleaning something off, for example a window, and you can quite easily actively be in the process of wiping a window clean. Meanwhile, 'to break' describes a result, and it's quite difficult to actively be in the process of breaking a window: the window can be broken or unbroken, but there really isn't an appreciable in-between state where the window is in the process of breaking. All this to say that 'to wipe' would sooner be used imperfectively, and 'to break' to perfectively: you'd sooner say "I'm currently wiping the window" than "I'm currently breaking the window"; likewise, you'd sooner say "I've broken the window" than "I've wiped the window".
Additionally, Varamm also a negative prefix, al-, that metathesises with the inverse perfectivity marker to form the prefix anle(t)-.
Finally, Varamm has a constituent marker, a verb formed used in subordinate clauses, and it supersedes the perfectivity marking. This fulfills a previously mentioned requirement of the challenge to have a gaping gap in two of phonology, conjugation, and declension. Since subordinate verbs cannot take perfectivity marking, subordinate clauses must be in the grammatical aspect that corresponds to their main verbs lexical aspect.
​
Tenses and the Wheel of Time:
Varamm marks 6 tenses and has a cyclical concept of time. These tenses are past, present, future, distant, immediate past, and immediate future. These tenses are marked using demonstratives wherein the deixis is used as a conceptual metaphor for time and the speaker and listener occupy nearby points on the circle of time.
The present is considered to be a point in time between the speaker and the listener, and as such is marked using the medial demonstrative. Therefore, if the present is between the speaker and the listener, then the past and future must be on either side. In the case of Varamm, a point nearer to the speaker than the listener is considered in the past, and a point nearer to the listener than the speaker is considered in the future; as such, the past is marked with a proximate demonstrative and the future with an immediate. This stems from the idea of the speaker gifting something to the listener: the gift was (past) with the speaker, and it will (future) be with the listener. Finally, the distal demonstrative marks a time far away from the now, either past or future; if time is cyclical, then the distant past and distant future are the same, and represent a point on the circle opposite to the present.
The immediate past and immediate future are marked using a proximate and a medial demonstrative respectively, but the verb takes an additional contiguous marker. Both these tenses refer to moments immediately adjacent to the moment being talked about, but without any sort of time descriptor they can also refer to moments immediately adjacent to the moment of speech.
This whole system was inspired by Rapa Nui's use of post-verbal demonstratives.
​
Subject Agreement:
Verbs agree with their subjects for both plurality and class. Plurality agreement is done through root reduplication. In the case of intransitive sentences, wherein the subject takes an absolutive marker that supersedes its plurality marking, this verbal agreement is the only way to discern it's plurality. Meanwhile, class agreement is done through the post-verbal demonstrative used for the tense system: the form this demonstrative takes must agree in class with the subject. For this agreement, 2nd person pronouns trigger transversal agreement, and 1st person can trigger summital or arboreal agreement depending on clusivity/matedness (this will be discussed together with the noun classes below).
​

Syntax

Varamm has a basic VOS word order, as previously mentioned, but it's possessive and copular constructions are non-verbal and don't follow this same word order. The latter of these 2 constructions fulfills the challenge requirement to not have a non-verbal, non-zero, non-particle copula.
​
Possessive Construction:
Possessive constructions follow the format of "[possessee] [genitive pronoun] ([possessor])". This is similar to a zero-copula construction wherein simply be juxtaposing the possessee with a genitive pronoun, which can be read as an adjectival form, the meaning of possession is expressed. The possessor is optional in this case but appears phrase finally like a subject would in a full sentence.
​
Copular Construction:
The copular constriction follows the format of "[copular pronoun] [predicate] ([subject])". This was based on the Hebrew copular pronoun construction wherein literally translating "David is the thief" would render "David he the thief". In theory this could read as a zero-copula if you omit the subject or the copular pronoun since the copular pronoun is identical to the ergative pronoun, but I'm happy saying this still doesn't quite fail the requirement because the pronoun is required for a copular reading. Also, I imagine that using a zero-copula with pure juxtaposition would use the absolutive pronoun.
​

Semantics

Here I'll discuss the noun class system. I'm discussing it under semantics because so far my best descriptor for this system is to call it "semantic noun class". I have no idea how appropriate this is, so if you can think of a better name I'm all ears.
​
Noun Class
Varamm has 4 noun classes: summital, arboreal, basal, and transversal. Each of these prototypically describes a noun's origin. The speakers of Varamm live in the mountains and divide the world into 3 broad zones: the summit, the slopes, and the plains. These 3 zones correspond to the first 3 noun classes. The final noun class, transversal, describes nouns that regularly move between these zones.
Whilst the noun classes describe noun origin, each of the classes has also come to acquire certain metaphorical connotations. Summital nouns describe things that are holy, or virtuous, or awe-inspiring, as well as things that are tall or volant. Arboreal nouns describe things that are mundane, or familiar, part of every day life. Basal nouns describe things that are distant or foreign, or low down, or have to do with the ocean. There's also a rough diminutive/augmentative split or tribal/civil split between the arboreal and basal nouns: a homestead might be arboreal, whilst a metropolis is basal, for example. Finally, transversal nouns describe things that are related to trade and commerce.
Now, why I refer to this system as semantic noun class is because any noun can treated as any class. Nouns occupy broad or loose semantic fields and the agreement patterns they trigger narrow their meaning. Not every noun has a canonical definition in every class, but many of them do. My favourite example of this system in action is for the word grasan which occupies the semantic field for 'arboriforme'. When treated as an arboreal noun, grasan naturally then means 'tree'. If we treat it as a summital noun, it proceeds to take on a meaning of tree-like lichens (specifically foliose and some fruticose lichens). Similarly, when treated basally, it means 'coral', arguably the tree of the ocean, kelp aside. And when treated transversally? It means 'fossil tree' because they are transverse to rock strata.
​
Matedness
I'm including this here because it's related to noun class. Varamm has a clusivity distinction in its first person pronouns that extends to the singular forms, at least after a fasion. In the singular, this clusivity distinction lines up to this concept of matedness: the unmated 1st person singular pronouns are used when the speaker is not married, and naturally the mated forms are used for when they are. This also extends to a set of 1st person dual pronouns that are only used when mated. Both 1st person dual pronouns refer to oneself and one's spouse, but the inclusive is used when addressing one's spouse, and the exclusive is when addressing someone else.
As mentioned previously, the 1st and 2nd person pronouns trigger agreement patterns just like the 3rd person pronouns would. 2nd person pronouns always trigger transversal agreement, whilst 1st person pronouns trigger arboreal and summital agreement based on matedness/clusivity. The unmated and inclusive forms trigger summital agreement, these forms being considered more virtuous, whilst the mated and exclusive forms trigger arboreal agreement.
​

Test Sentences

One of the stipulations of the original challenge was to translate 5 sentences to put the syntax to the test. I'll try for these to be illustrative of all that I've shared above but I am still lacking in vocabulary to properly exhibit everything.
​
Go alklen tvetr qontârr hemetrgû.
/xɔ alklɛn tvɛʈ͡ʂʳ qɔnæːɹ̝ hɛmɛʈ͡ʂʳxʊː/

qo al-klen tvetr qo-nta-arr hemetr-gû CONTIGUOUS NEG-arrive[PFV] PRS.ARB SUM.ABS-mountain-SUM.DEF team[DU.ARB].SGV 

"The squadman will just not have summited the peak."
​
Nentrâsr nîram ngarr qokîgrenarr.
/nɛɳʈ͡ʂʳæːʂʳ nɪːɾam ŋaɹ̝ qɔkɪːʀɛnaɹ̝/

ne-ntrâsr nîram ngarr qo-kîgren-arr INV.PFV-arrive[PFV] northerly FUT.SUM SUM.ABS-horns[DU]-SUM.DEF 

"The labourer will be arriving from the south."
​
Anlevkevkekav nwe kav sehemetrgî.
/aŋlɛvkɛvkɛkav ŋwɛ kav sɛhɛmɛʈ͡ʂʳxɪː/

anle-vke-vkekav nwe kav se-hemetr-gî NEG;INV.PFV-INV\PL-PL\trudge absummitally PST.BAS BAS.ABS-team[DU]-BAS.DEF 

"The teams (of cattle) have not been travelling down from the mountain."
​
Sûr hemetr genn.
/sʊːɾ hɛmɛʈ͡ʂʳ xɛnː/

sûr hemetr genn 1DU.MATED.COP team good 

"We make a good team, you (my spouse) and I."
​
Novvâmmang Kantra.
/nɔvːæːmːaŋ kaɳʈ͡ʂʳa/

novva-amm-ang Kantra juvenile[BAS]-BAS.DEF=3SG.ARB.GEN Kantra 

"Kantra has the errand boy."
​

Afterword

If you read any part of this, I hope that you enjoyed or that you learned something new. If you have questions, comments, or curiosities, please leave them below. If anything was unclear, or you caught any mistakes, I'll be happy to clear anything up. And if you have any critiques, I'd love to hear other perspectives on this conlang. This conlang has very quickly become my favourite, if not second to Tokétok. I only maintain 3 at the moment, but Varamm has totally eclipsed Naŧoš in every way. It still certainly needs some work, and there are some things I'm still working on that I did not touch on here, but it by far and away gets the lion's share of my attention these days.
I imagine I shall return with updates on Varamm as I canonise more of the syntax, the tone-tag modal system, or the pitch accent system I've inadvertently begun to develop. Until then:
​
Esr perre asr negîvavesr.
"You're lifted for your sniffing."
Thank you for paying this some mind.

Okay, friendly mathematicians of Reddit, I have a puzzle for you! It has a series of questions of increasing difficulty. I do not have an answer! It's something I've been thinking curiously about, and I'm hoping you'll have fun figuring it out.
Context
The puzzle revolves around the British TV gameshow called "Letterbox", which is played essentially like hangman: contestants guess letters to figure out a mystery password. In the heats leading to the final, contestants collect 8 random letters which are not in the final key word.
The final puzzle is always a relatively common English word, 8 unique letters long. So a word like academic is not possible because it has repeated letters (2 As, 2 Cs), and a word like asphodel would probably be too obscure.
In the final round, the £2,500 prize pot is reduced by £500 for every incorrect letter guessed, so contestants lose if they guess 5 incorrect letters. That means contestants have a minimum of 8 and a maximum of 12 guesses to end the game, and fewer guesses means more money.
Question 1
Ignoring the validity of words (i.e. any arrangement of 18 choose 8 letters is a potential password), what is the probability of a contestant winning (i.e. correctly guessing 8 letters within 12 attempts)?
Question 2
Ignoring the validity of words, what is the probability of winning each possible prize pot (£2,500 / £2,000 / £1,500 / £1,000 / £500)? In other words, what is the probability of winning after 8/9/10/11/12 guesses?
MORE CONTEXT – AND MORE DIFFICULTY!
The first two questions are well and good, but some of you might not be satisfied leaving it at that. Obviously, a lot more goes into playing--and winning--the game than simply guessing random letters. After all, we're trying to make a real word. For those of you brave enough, let's look at a few other variables and questions.

1. The word list: knowing which combinations of letters produce valid words is important. This will primarily help with processing the other variables. A search on morewords.com gives 8,181 eight-unique-letter words in the SOWPODS (UK Scrabble) dictionary, but some of them will be too obscure, of course. Naturally, rude words are also removed--it's on the telly, after all! (So, no, urinates is not going to be on there!)
2. Letter frequency: this can be determined based on the English language as a whole (with plenty of data online) or from the word list itself. In fact, both are useful since initial guesses will be based on more general letter frequency, while later guesses will be influenced by the results of previous guesses and what is most likely to produce a valid word.
3. Letter combinations: every syllable, for example, needs at least one vowel (but rarely more than two), which is often preceded and/or followed by at least one consonant. Some consonant digraphs (sh, ch, ck, pl, bl, tr, st, gr, ph, ...) and clusters (sch, str, scr, chr, ght, ...) are quite common, while others are rare or impossible. (You'll never see xqw, for example.) Q is always followed by U. And suffixes like -ing, -(i)es/d, -ist, -ous, -ish, ... can be found frequently.
4. The 'removed' letters: the 8 letters removed by contestants during the heats are free, fair, and random secret selections from all the letters not in the final puzzle. Of course, selecting a common letter is more helpful than one that appears less frequently; knowing there's no Q is less useful than knowing there isn't an E.
5. Using optimal strategy: how to play the game to increase the chances of winning. In other words, whereas the order in which letters (or gaps) are guessed doesn't matter in questions 1 and 2, this order does matter now (and in real-life gameplay), as it has a direct impact on the other letters guessed. For example, a first guess of the letter E reveals it as the penultimate letter, which provides a lot of information about the final letter: it can't be Q, and no valid words end in EB, EG, EI, EJ, EK, EO, EU, EV, or EZ. That means guessing the final gap is now a 1 in 7 instead of a 1 in 17 chance. And those odds could be further improved by considering the likelihood of a letter to follow E in that position together with the chance of that letter appearing elsewhere in the word if not in the final place. (So, for example, is 'D' more likely to be somewhere else in the word if not at the end compared to S, T, N...).
6. Winning early: at some point, the word becomes obvious. W_ _ _A_ER -- can you figure it out? How about now: W_GMA_ER? Or now: WIGMA_ER? At some point before the last letter, the penny drops, essentially amounting to free guesses (or guesses with 100% certainty). This means you might only need to guess 6 letters before knowing the word. In concrete terms, this comes down to the number of valid words that can be formed from the given information combined with the commonness of the word. Technically, given W_ _ _A_ER, only one word can be the answer, but wigmaker is uncommon enough to not be guessable so early. If we had M_ _ _A_ER, the answer could be either mistaker or mislayer, so it's impossible to have certainty at this point.

Question 3
Given these additional parameters, what are the chances of winning at each prize level (i.e. question 2)?
Question 4
What is the optimal strategy for playing this game? Which letters should be guessed first?
​
Good luck, and have fun!

(I'm not a professional or anything (so I'm definitely gonna say something weird or doesn't really make sense), I'm going by personal experience, so take all this with a grain of salt.)
Glass Animals has quickly become one of my top three favourite music groups of all time, honestly, and there's a lot of reasons why I would say that, but I'm gonna be real for a moment and try to talk about this in a way that I can understand it. The psychological impact of GA is one of the most intriguing experiences I've ever had, and I've stated in other posts that they help me with anxiety and calming down.
Now that I've said that, I wanted to look deeper into the reason/reasons why. (Again, I'm not a professional, so take it all with a grain of salt).
The Use of Tempo
I'm gonna start this off by looking at Glass Animals' musical design. When it comes to listening to music, the human body responds to it in different ways depending on who you talk to. The same can be said for relaxation. You can relax however the hell you want, whether it's by jamming out to heavy metal or by listening to something classical, however, in my own way, I experience relaxation when listening to slow music. The tempo in which the music is played has an impact on the human body, and GA is no exception. A lot of GA's music is set at slower speeds, and slow music often results in the heart rate slowing down and giving a relaxing feeling.Songs like Your Love, Gooey, Black Mambo, etc. are all set at slower speeds and give the idea of relaxation.
(Theoretical) Emphasis
Now this one is purely theoretical as I don't know if it was intentional or not by GA themselves, but one of the most fascinating things about their music is the use of the autonomous sensory meridian response, or ASMR, and the emphasis on vowels, consonants, and digraphs. What do I mean by that? Well, vowels such as A, E, I, O, U are used a LOT in GA's songs, and Bayley's emphasis on consonants such as "t" and "s" and digraphs such as "ah", "ck", and "sh". In ASMR, the latter especially is used very often to elicit said response (I've always phrased it as the words "digging into the ear". )If you listen to Take A Slice, here are some of the lyrics with more emphasis on each thing in bold.
I'm filthy and I lOve i...T, STudebaker all gold, got a SHotgun in my poCKE...T [...] Suckin' on a slim Vogue, dark fingernail poliSH
What the ellipsis on the T's mean is the delay before the sound occurs.
The bolded letters and digraphs are emphasised in the song and it might just be my ears, but it feels as though the sounds were 'digging' into the listener's head. Another thing about that song in particular is the vocal distortion to give the auditory appearance of growling, which might also feed into that thing.
Tone
One of the most fascinating things I've heard about GA is their use of tone, in particular Dave Bayley's vocal range. I'll say it right now that the tone he uses for singing is fantastic, but it also plays a part in the previous two paragraphs. How does that work? Well, let's take a look at Gooey and Hazey.
Gooey's music has reverb, and this is given right from the start of the song. If you pick apart a song and add reverb to it, it gives the feeling that it's drawn out into a cave or some sort of chamber. This feeds into the first paragraph where, because it sounds like it's in a cave, the tempo has slowed down (because you have to give it time for the sound to fade). As for the emphasis, let's take a look at the lyrics, and I'm gonna do the same as I did with Take A Slice by bolding the letters and digraphs. One thing that makes Gooey unique in that the first letter sounds like an R is being heard (at least to me).
(r) I come clo...SE, let me SHow you everything I knOW, the jungle SLang, SPinning around my head and I STare.
The alliteration of "s" words helps with identifying the tone that Bayley uses, as it sounds almost like a whistle or a whisper (or both). Usually with these sorts of tones, the speaker is lulling the listener to sleep (in combination with the slow tempo).
Hazey is a little different, as it's slightly more fast-paced than usual and features loud instruments such as brass horns, a badass bass, and finger snaps. There's also what appears to be samples of cat purring in the song. Bayley's vocal range shines here with him going into much higher tones, yet the near-whispering vocals still remain. Again, we're going to do the same as we did with the others and analyse the lyrics.
You know you're So jUICED, you said you kicked the bOOZe [...]
The length in which the "ooo" sounds are drawn out especially help with the tone, as well as the whistle/whisper with the "C" in "juiced" and the "Z" in "booze".
You guys get the point. Now I know that not all of their songs are all slow and relaxing; in my opinion Space Ghost Coast to Coast sounds more grunge-like and "rough", with the use of growling undertones at the chorus; to me it sounds like an auditory snarl, while Take A Slice is loud and boisterous with a lot more "growling" and the use of brass and whatever the hell that last instrument is during the instrumental (wanting to say a distorted guitar, but I have no idea).
Glass Animals' music has an intriguing and fantastic impact on my head, one that's not only one to hear (hehe, pun) from a listener's perspective, but also looking deeper into it makes me think and want to analyse more of their music; it's just that fucking good. Dear lord, I didn't expect myself to type this whole essay, but I did it anyway. if there's anything that I missed, what you guys wanna add to that, your own experiences, if you think I'm spouting nonsense or bullshit, that's fine too. (By the way, if there are any professionals out there that can better word/more accurately phrase what I was trying to describe, let me know and huge thanks.)

For ad werþe zen nýe Mannen, bez mann hæbbe allhjarted.
[ɸɔɾ ɑ ˈɰɛrːs̪ə ʃɲ̩ ˈnœʏ̯ːjə ˈmɑnːn̩ bəʃ ˈmɑnː ˈʃæbːə ˌɑlːˈʃɑrːtə]
for to become-inf the.m.sg new-def.m.sg Manne-the.m.sg be.fut.sg man.sg have-inf all-heart-def.n.sg
"To become God, you have to walk in everyone's shoes."
- Erish proverb

Erish (ærsk), an a posteriori West Germanic artlang, isn't the first constructed language I've worked on, but it is the first one I can say has come to a point where it is presentable. The concept is that, in the conworld, Erish arises from Proto-West Germanic nearby North Germanic languages as they arise from Proto-Norse, and is still in a sort of sprachbund with them. Intelligibility, particularly in speech, is hampered by Erish's own innovations, especially phonologically.
Here, I would like to provide a summary of the closest thing to a standard Erish pronunciation, as well as an account of the orthography, as its depth tells a bit about the changes that Erish has undergone. With each, I'll give a snippet about the goals I had going into them, as well as feedback questions I myself have - Erish is and will always be a work-in-progress. I am greatly indebted to a variety of resources, so I will provide several of them at the end of this post and the others that may follow it, as well as a concluding gloss.

Phonology

Most Erish speakers simply use their own dialects when speaking, up to and including the King or Queen. The pronunciation taught to foreigners, as well as the one used in national broadcasting, is that of Hamnstead, which was the city where radio broadcasting first developed in Erishland, and which is still a center of national media. The Hamnstead dialect is a Western dialect close enough to Southern dialects that its phonology is sort of a mixture of the two groups, plus its own quirks.
Goals
Personally, this phonology is my attempt at creating one reminiscent of the older stages of Germanic languages, but which feels plausibly modern and plausible in a place where North Germanic contact and influence continues into present. A bit of a summary and highlights of what that means:

• The vowels, especially as phonemes, are not too dissimilar from contemporary and historic relatives, as Germanic languages were and are known for their many vowels.
  • Hamnstead Erish doesn't have the /ɵ,ʉː/ of Southern Erish dialects, but the realization of /eː,øː,oː/ is similar to the Norwegian and Old Norse diphthongs. They even sort of correspond, but with the asterisk that they also correspond to Norwegian /iː,yː,ʉː/ and /eː,øː,oː/.
• The consonants may seem more akin to Spanish than Swedish, though in my view, it's a blend of the latter and Gothic. I do give props to the interpretation of Spanish /ɾ/ being ungeminated / for Erish /'s allophony, though.
  • Word-initial /ɕ,j,ɧ/ in Swedish corresponds to /t͡ʃ,ʝ,ʃ/ in Erish; /ʝ/ is similar phonetically to Old English /j/. However, one word with Erish initial /ʝ/ also corresponds to Swedish /h/; initial /ʃ/ also corresponds to many Swedish /h/'s, and even a few /d/'s.
• Many of the apparent archaisms are actually re-innovations. Why cling to an old way of pronunciation when a change closer to present day can plausibly re-introduce something similar?
  • Case in point: Is the [β] allophone of /b/ you lenited decades ago hard to distinguish from the /v/ you and your neighboring languages have had for centuries? Just merge /v/ with /b/!
• The only notable phonological archaisms of Hamnstead Erish, to my knowledge, are that there is still a short /æ/ from i-umlauted /a/ (something uncommon even among Erish dialects), and that Proto-Germanic *h is still pronounced as /x/ where it hasn't merged with other phonemes.
  • There's /ɣ/ as well, but Dutch and Low German also preserve it. It's also a bit misleading, since /ɣ/ is actually /ɰ/. The /ɣ/ transcription is used for consistency with what otherwise varies between /ɣ/, /ɰ/, and /w/ between dialects.

Vowels
Hamnstead Erish has a rather bland vowel inventory for an Erish dialect. About the only notable feature, phonemically speaking, is that there is still a short /æ/ distinct from /ɛ/, though that's typical of Western dialects. Phonetically, though, the story's a bit more complicated - Hamnstead Erish is amongst the few dialects that can be argued to, in some limited way, preserve most of the original Old Erish diphthongs, and has re-innovated a very limited form of allophonic u-umlaut.
​

	Front unrounded	Front rounded	Back
Close	ɪ • iː	ʏ • yː	ʊ • uː
Mid	ɛ • eː	œ • øː	ɔ • oː
Open	æ • æː		ɑ • ɑː

• The short vowels are phonetic monophthongs
  • The close vowels are near-close [ɪ,ʏ,ʊ]
  • The mid-front vowels, especially /ɛ/, are mid-front [ɛ̝,œ̝]; /œ/ may also be open-mid [œ̝]
    • /ɛ/ in unstressed syllables is generally [ə], though broadcasters tend towards using an [ɛ̠]
  • The mid-back vowel is either open-mid [ɔ] or, less often, mid [ɔ̝]
    • In unstressed syllables, it may be realized as a retracted, raised [ɞ̟˔], but this is far less common than the [ə] realization of /ɛ/. This may have to do with unstressed /ɔ/ always being morphologically associated with some marked feature, namely the feminine gender, neuter plural, and plural subject of the past tense.
  • The open front vowel may be near-open [æ] or open [a]
  • The open back vowel in regular syllables may vary between completely unrounded open back [ɑ], or a very weakly rounded [ɑ̜]
    • /ɑ/ is fully rounded to [ɒ] if a following syllable contains /ɔ,ʊ/, or the allophone [ɒ]
• The long vowels /iː,uː/ are phonetic monophthongs [iː,uː]
• /ɑː/ is phonetically a monophthong, but may be raised [ɑ̝ː], and follows the allophonic rounding pattern of its short counterpart
• All other long vowels are realized as diphthongs
  • The mid-vowels /eː,øː,oː/ are realized as closing diphthongs [ɛɪ̯ː,œʏ̯ː,ɔʊ̯ː], or [eɪ̯ː,øʏ̯ː,oʊ̯ː]
  • /yː,æː/ are realized as backing diphthongs [yʉ̯ː,æɐ̯ː]

Consonants
Hamnstead Erish, like most Erish dialects, has a consonant inventory that is phonemically similar to the Nordic languages, but the allophony of these consonants is less so. Voiced stops regularly lenit to approximants that devoice and fricate word-finally; this leads to the notorious "Erish hiss". Notable aspects of Hamnstead's phonology are the merger of /ʂ/ and /ɕ/ into /ʃ/, a change which is common but still absent in Southern dialects, and that /ɣ/ is a velar approximant, instead of the labiovelar common to Western dialects.
​

	Vclss. labial	Vcd. labial	Vclss. coronal	Vcd. coronal	Vclss. palatal	Vcd. palatal	Vclss. velar	Vcd. velar
Nasal		m		n		ɲ		ŋ
Stops	p	b	t	d	t͡ʃ	(d͡ʒː)	k	(gː)
Cntnts.	f	(β)	s	(ð)	ʃ	ʝ	x	ɣ
Laterals				l		ʎ
Trill				r

• The nasals are generally realized as [m,n,ɲ̟,ŋ], with the palatal and nasal being inherently geminate. Before a coronal obstruent, they are typically realized as [ɱ,n̪,ɲ̟,ŋ].
  • After a syllable initial voiceless obstruent, /n,ɲ/ are voiceless [n̥,ɲ̟̊].
  • Unstressed, word-final /ɛm,ɛn/ are commonly realized as syllabic [m̩,n̩].
    • Unstressed sequences of /ʃɛn/ and sometimes /t͡ʃɛn/ may be realized as [ʃɲ̩,t͡ʃɲ̩]
• Similar to many other Germanic languages, the voiceless stops /p,t,t͡ʃ,k/ are realized as aspirated [pʰ,t̪ʰ,t͡ʃʰ,kʰ] in stressed onsets if they are not preceded by a sibilant.
• The voiced stops /b,d/ are plosive [b,d̪] if they are morpheme initial, geminated, or post-nasal. Elsewhere, they lenit to the approximants [β̞, ð̞], which devoice and spirantize word-finally to /f,s/.
  • The process of /d/ to /s/, in tandem with /ʝ/ to /ʃ/, is a well-known feature of Erish phonology. Uneducated Erish speakers using other languages may apply it, making the "Erish hiss".
• The voiced continuants /ʝ,ɣ/ are approximants [j,ɰ]; when geminated, they harden to stops [d͡ʒː,gː]. Similar to the voiced stops, the approximants devoice and spirantize to /ʃ,x/ word-finally.
• In emphatic speech, or speech mimicking Eastern dialects, the phonemic and allophonic voiced continuants may be pronounced as [β,ð,ʝ,ɣ], though never with the same frication as the voiceless continuants.
• The voiceless continuants /f,s,ʃ,x/ are consistently realized with strong constriction as [ɸ,s̪,ʃ,x].
  • Some dialects have free variation in the realization of /f/ from [ɸ] to [f], and a few consistently realize it as the labiodental /f/.
  • After a voiced stop, /f/ is realized as [v], which usually has less frication than the voiceless allophone, but is not an approximant like the phonemic voiced continuants.
• The coronal lateral /l/ is normally realized as [l], but when in contact with /t,d,s/, it is laminal denti-alveolar [l̪].
  • After a voiceless consonant, it is voiceless [l̥~l̪̊].
• The palatal lateral /ʎ/ is a traditional phoneme of Erish, but younger generations outside of the South have begun to merge it with /ʝ/. It is realized as an alveolo-palatal [ʎ̟].
  • After a voiceless consonant, it is voiceless [ʎ̥˖].
• The trill / is realized as a full trill morpheme-initially or when geminated; in other contexts, it is an alveolar tap [ɾ].
  • After a voiceless consonant, it is voiceless [ɾ̥].
  • Unstressed, word-final /ɛ is commonly realized as [ɐ].
• As described throughout, the coronal obstruents /t,d,s/ are dental [t̪,d̪,s̪]. Other dialects may use an alveolar realization [t,d,s].
  • Before /k/, /s/ is usually alveolar [s].
• The palatal and velar obstruents /t͡ʃ,ʃ,ʝ,k,ɣ,x/ are all allophonically rounded to [Ḱʷ,Kʷ] before rounded vowels.

Phonotactics
Valid onset consonants:

• Zero consonant
• All consonant phonemes other than /ɲ/ and /ŋ/
• Obstruent + nasal: sm, sn, ʃɲ, kn, xn
• Obstruent + continuant: tf, df, sf
• Obstruent + lateral: pl, bl, fl, sl, ʃʎ, kl, ɣl, xl
• Obstruent + trill: pr, br, fr, tr, dr, sr, kr, ɣr, xr
• Continuant + stop: sp, st, sk
• Continuant + stop + lateral: spl
• Continuant + stop + trill: spr, str, skr

Valid coda consonants:

• Zero consonant
• Consonant: m, n, p, t, t͡ʃ, k, f, s, ʃ, x, l, r
• All consonant phonemes as geminates
• Nasal + nasal: mn, ɲn, ŋn
• Nasal + obstruent: mp, nt, nd, ns, ɲt͡ʃ, ɲʃ, ŋk
• Obstruent + obstruent: sp, pt, ft, st, ʃt, kt, xt, ps, fs, ts, ks, xs, sk
• Lateral + nasal: lm
• Lateral + obstruent: lp, lt, ld, ʎt͡ʃ, lk, lf, ls, ʎʃ, lx
• Trill + nasal: rm, rn
• Trill + obstruent: rp, rf, rt, rd, rs, rt͡ʃ, rʃ, rk, rx
• Trill + lateral: rl

Valid medial consonants:

• All consonant onsets and codas above, excluding zero consonants
  • If hiatus occurs, /j/ is inserted if the first vowel is front; if back, /ɣ/ is inserted.
• Nasal + obstruent: mb
• Lateral + obstruent: lb, lɣ
• Trill + nasal: rŋ
• Trill + obstruent: rb, rʝ, rɣ

All stressed syllables are inherently heavy - if there is no long vowel, the first consonant to follow is geminated. Neither long vowels nor geminates may occur in unstressed syllables.
Prosody
Like most other Germanic languages, the most common syllable to be stressed is the first (and often only) of a given word. Loanwords can follow different patterns, but a rule of thumb is that the syllable before the last consonant of a root is the one to be stressed.
Feedback Questions
Questions I personally have are:

• For those familiar with the phonologies of older Germanic languages as well as Proto-Germanic, does the consonant system seem like a good "modern version" of that type of phonology?
• Is it a good idea to leave all long vowels other than /ɑː,iː,uː/ as phonetic diphthongs? Would it take a short time before the diphthong allophones become phonemes of their own, or would they remain stable?
• I'm fairly comfortable with /ʝ/ devoicing and spirantizing to /ʃ/ word-finally because there are direct attestations of such final-obstruent devoicing, but is it plausible for /d/ to similarly go to /s/?
• Does anybody have a resource that consistently gives phonemic transcriptions of Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish words, especially regarding pitch-accent/stod?

Orthography & History

Erish is written with the standard 26 letters of the Latin alphabet and the additional letters þ, æ, and œ. Unfortunately, pronunciation cannot be succinctly described for Hamnstead Erish because the orthography is fairly etymological, essentially reflecting the pronunciation of Old Erish with a few simplifications and updates. It is, though, fairly regular, and the hope of Jugar Raskson, the father of modern Erish orthography, was that the written language would let as many people as possible derive their own pronunciation from the spelling.
Goals
Erish orthography is essentially fighting two battles: the battle to modernize spelling and keep the rules as regular as possible, and the battle to keep important cultural and religious texts from the Old Erish period as intelligible as possible. I've looked at Icelandic and Faroese for inspiration, but also incorporated principles from languages with less orthographic depth.

• As will be seen, Erish orthography is more than willing to keep native spellings a millennium old. It is less concerned about loanwords, which may be mangled to keep regularity.
• With no small amount of resistance from traditionalists, many old graphemes have either been dropped or restricted in usage. Joches "horses", for example, used to be spelled johves.
• The use of the letter k for /k,t͡ʃ/ is actually fairly recent; the traditional letter in Erish was c, and this is still seen in the basic long forms of k, g, and h being ck, cg, and ch.
  • Similarly, the use of w is a modernism; v was used for both itself and w, and this is still seen in the spellings of Cv clusters.
• Erish tries as much as it can to avoid diacritics and special characters, so it makes use of every letter of the Latin alphabet as a regular part of its orthography.
  • The accented vowels are there because digraphed vowels would suggest vowels in hiatus or perhaps even long vowels.
  • The letters æ and œ are used along with þ more or less out of in-universe tradition.

Vowels
The following table presents the pronunciation of vowel graphemes in Erish. Note that the "jV" digraphs are only pronounced in this way if the j is word-initial or can soften a preceding consonant:
​

Letter(s)	a	e, í, eì, aì	i	o, á, ú, aù, où	u, ó	y	æ, já	œ, jó, jú, ý, oì, eù
Short	/ɑ/	/ɛ/	/ɪ/	/ɔ/	/ʊ/	/ʏ/	/æ/	/œ/
Long	/ɑː/	/eː/	/iː/	/oː/	/uː/	/yː/	/æː/	/øː/

• The long vowels are only used if the vowel is stressed and followed by no more than a single consonant; when there is a long vowel before multiple consonants, an apostrophe is inserted after the first consonant, as in gód't "good (n.)" /ˈɣuːst/. In all other cases, the short vowels are used.
  • Several common grammatical words are pronounced in common speech with a short vowel, such as jis "ye" [jɪs], mostly because they are unstressed.
• The grave accented letters ì and ù are used to represent the second element of potential diphthongs in Erish dialects that arose from loanwords. In Hamnstead Erish, they are simply (phonemically) monophthongs.
• Because it is impossible for vowels to stand in hiatus, any sequence where two vowels stand in hiatus, such as fríen "free" /ˈfreːʝɛn/, is treated as though a g stood between the two vowels.
• The accented letters correspond to Old Erish /aː,iː,oː,uː,yː/, which shifted during the Middle Erish period. In the Hamnstead dialect, /aː,oː/ shifted to /ɔ~oː,ʊ~uː/.
  • /iː,uː,yː/ merged with the Old Erish diphthongs /ɛi̯,ɔu̯,œy̯/, and then later monophthongized to /ɛ~eː,ɔ~oː,œ~øː/
  • The demonstrative pronouns zó "this, that (f.)", zád "this, that (n.)", zós "these, those (f.)", zóm "these, those (dat.)" are written with acute accents, but their sound value is that of the unaccented letter. This is done to distinguish them from the definite article.
• The Old Erish glides /jaː,joː,juː/ became /æː,øː,yː/, so long as the /j/ didn't palatalize the preceding consonant and wasn't word-initial; this /yː/ would go through the process described above,

Consonants
To keep Erish consonants simple, and as allophony has already been covered, their transcription here is phonemic. In educational materials for Erish, consonants are generally divided into four groups, plain, strong, weak, and the letter g, which are grouped based on whether and how they can soften.
Basic rules about consonants include:

• Consonants are long if they are not word-initial, and they are doubled, their grapheme is composed of more than one letter, or they precede another consonant without an intervening apostrophe.
  • The one exception is qu, which is treated like a short consonant for both consonant and vowel length.
• Several consonants can also become fricatives word-finally if they are short.
• Before another d, s, t, frication may also occur, with the resulting consonant, in line with pronunciation rules, being long or short.

Plain consonants
Plain consonants are so-called because they cannot soften under any circumstances.
​

Letter(s)	Hard	Fricative
b	/b/ binde "to bind" /ˈbɪnːdɛ/	/f/ lab "lab(oratory)" /ˈlɑːf/
f	/f/ faþer "father" /ˈfɑːsɛ
m	/m/ móte "must" /ˈmuːtɛ/
ng	/ŋ/ wing "wing" /ˈɣɪŋː/
p	/p/ pá "on" /ˈpoː/
r	/ rotte "rat" /ˈrɔtːɛ/
v	/b/ virus "virus" /ˈbiːrʊs/	/f/ livte "lived" /ˈlɪfːtɛ/

• V may also represent /f/ after a consonant, such as in tves "two" /ˈtfeːs/, as least in Hamnstead Erish. Erish dialects generally vary between this v representing /f/, /w/ (the original Old Erish value), or /x/.
  • V otherwise reflects non-initial instances of Old Erish /f/, which was realized as [v], and later became its own phoneme. When /b/ began to be lenited to [β] around the 1700s, this facilitated the merger of /v/ with /b/ (as well as the shift of /f/ to [ɸ]).

Strong consonants
Strong consonants are "strong" enough it takes a j or z to soften them. Because strong consonants are long when softened and non-initial, they lack soft fricative forms. They include the coronal consonants which got palatalized to retroflex consonants, though z was retroflex for most of Erish history. The retroflex spellings tend not to occur in modern loanwords unless Henskland adopts a retroflex form; it's the only Land left that hasn't merged the retroflex consonants with the palatals.
​

Letter(s)	Hard	Soft	Fricative
d	/d/ dœr "door" /ˈdøː	/ʝ/ bedje "to ask" /ˈbɛʝːɛ/	/s/ sæd "seed" /ˈsæːs/
l	/l/ láte "to let" /ˈloːtɛ/	/ʎ/ ljúht "light" /ˈʎɔxːt/
n	/n/ naht "night" /ˈnɑxːt/	/ɲ/ hænje "to hang" /ˈʃæɲːɛ/
s	/s/ synge "to sing" /ˈsʏŋːɛ/	/ʃ/ sjelv "self" /ˈʃɛlːf/
st	/st/ stóren "big" /ˈstuːrɛn/	/ʃ/ stjarne "star" /ˈʃɑrːnɛ/
t	/t/ sten "stone" /ˈsteːn/	/t͡ʃ/ sitje "to sit" /ˈsɪt͡ʃːɛ/
z	/ʃ/ meze "more" /ˈmeːʃɛ/
þ	/s/ þing "thing" /ˈsɪŋː/	/ʃ/ þjúv "thief" /ˈʃoːf/

• In the definite article -ed as well as core grammatical words like ged "it" /ˈʝeː/, zad "the; that (n.)" /ˈʃɑː/, and gvad "what" /ˈɣɑː/, d is silent.
• D does not fricate after l or r, as in hald "hold (imp.)" /ˈxɑlːd/ and gard "farm" /ˈɣɑrːs/, but does after t, as in wlet'de "searched" /ˈɣleːstɛ/
• The use of j or z for softening strong consonants is largely predictable.
  • J is only used at the beginning of words, whilst z is normally used word-medially.
  • Word-medial palatalizing j is an indication that the verb - and it is always a verb - has an irregular conjugation that involves hardening (depalatalization).
    • J, however, is always used after l or n; lz and nz indicate /ʎʃ,ɲʃ/
• Lj and nj can only soften initially if they are word-initial, or part of the onsets hlj, hnj, slj, or snj.
• Before k, n is pronounced /ŋ/, as in tank "tank (container)" /ˈtaŋːk/
  • Before c, sk, tz, or z, it is pronounced as /ɲ/ as in lunc "lunch" /ˈlʊɲːt͡ʃ/
• S softens before lj and nj to /ʃ/, such as in snjó "snow" /ˈʃɲuː/
• T fricates before d, tt, or apostrophized t, as in hlot'de "allotted" /ˈxloːstɛ/
• Z reflects Old Erish /ʂ/, which was the main reflex of Proto-Germanic *z in Old Erish (some earlier instances did get devoiced to /s/ instead).
  • /z/ never occurred word-initially in Proto-Germanic, but it did in Old Erish, such as in zat "the; that (n.)" (whence modern Erish zad). This developed from some instances where a weakly stressed /θ/ got voiced to [ð], which soon assibilated to /z/, which later devoiced to /ʂ/.
• Þ reflects Old Erish /s/, the main reflex of Proto-Germanic *þ in Old Erish. Around the late 900s, the original dental fricative /θ/ assibilated to /s/, but remained contrastive with /s̺/, the reflex of Proto-Germanic *s. Although this contrast was lost by the 1400s, it is still reflected in Erish orthography.

Weak consonants
Weak consonants are "weak" enough that vowels can soften them in addition to j; in instances where a soft pronunciation is used, it is either because a hard letter is used, or because there is a v "shielding" them. They include the reflexes of the Old Erish velar consonants /x,k,sk/, as well as the labiovelars /xʷ,kʷ,skʷ/. The basic principle governing their softening is that they do so before certain vowels initially, and after other vowels elsewhere. If neither of these conditions are met, they use a hard pronunciation. It is to be noted that, barring one exception, acute accented letters have the same effects as their unaccented counterparts, and so they are not treated seperately here (grave accented vowels never soften a consonant).
​

Letter(s)	Conditions or example	Softens initially	Softens elsewhere	Hard
h (short), ch (long)	Conditions	to /ʃ/ before e, i, y, æ, œ	to /ʃ/ after e, i, y, æ, œ	/x/ in all other conditions
	Examples	himmel "sky" /ˈʃɪmːɛl/	reht "justice" /ˈrɛʃːt/	hús "house" /ˈxoːs/
k (short), ck (long)	Conditions	to /t͡ʃ/ before e, i, y, æ, œ	to /t͡ʃ/ after i, y	/k/ in all other conditions
	Examples	kyng "king" /ˈt͡ʃʏŋː/	rík "realm" /ˈreːt͡ʃ/	bók "book" /ˈbuːk/
sk (short and long)	Conditions	to /ʃ/ before e, i, y, æ, œ	to /ʃ/ after a (not á), e, i, y, æ, œ, or a consonant	/sk/ in all other conditions
	Examples	skíne "to shine" /ˈʃeːnɛ/	fisk "fish" /ˈfɪʃː/	busk "bush" /ˈbʊsːk/

• The use of h to represent /ʃ/ is more or less confined to native Erish vocabulary. Sk is far more common in loanwords.
• Similarly to s, h may also soften before lj and nj, as in hnjóse "to sneeze" /ˈʃɲuːse/
• Soft non-initial k is confined to native Erish vocabulary, as Eastern dialects failed to palatalize it in those conditions. Instead, c and zk are used in loanwords.
• The behavior of sk palatalizing after a but not á is because sk palatalized non-initially unless a back vowel preceded (or, technically, followed). Though in Old Erish they were phonemically /a,aː/, /a/ was not a back vowel (most likely being [ä]), but /aː/ was, being either [ɒː] or [ɔː].

Erish used to be far more inconsistent in representing when exceptions to these conditions occurred, but modern spelling is extremely regular in this regard. Soft consonants in instances where a hard consonant is expected are represented in different ways depending upon if they are initial, non-initial and short, or non-initial and long.
​

Desired soft consonant	Location and length	Grapheme(s)	Example
h /ʃ/	Initial	hj	hjarte "heart" /ˈʃɑrːtɛ/
	Non-initial and short	N/A
	Non-initial and long	hj (singular instance)	hlæhje "to laugh" /ˈxlæʃːɛ/
k /t͡ʃ/	Initial	kj	kjúe "to chew" /ˈt͡ʃoːɣɛ/
	Non-initial and short	c	koc "coach" /ˈkoːt͡ʃ/
	Non-initial and long	zk, rarely kj	þækje "to think" /ˈsæt͡ʃːɛ/
sk /ʃ/	Initial	skj	skjá "cloud" /ˈʃoː/
	Non-initial and short	N/A
	Non-initial and long	sc	broscyre "brochure" /ˈbrɔʃːʏ

• The use of non-initial hj, kj is, similar to the strong consonants, a signal that the verb's conjugation is irregular and involves hardening.
• Hj is an etymological grapheme that mostly occurs in native Erish vocabulary. Hlæhje "to laugh", is the only example in Erish of a non-initial hj.

Hard consonants are represented with similar treatments, with the grapheme depending upon whether the instance is word-initial, non-initial and short, or non-initial and long:
​

Desired hard consonant	Location and length	Grapheme(s)	Example
h /x/	Initial	hv	hvint "hint" /ˈxɪnːt/
	Non-initial and short	x	exo "echo" /ˈeːxɔ/
	Non-initial and long	hh, rarely hv	sehve "to see" /ˈsɛxːɛ/
k /k/	Initial	qu	quinne "woman" /ˈkɪnːɛ/
	Non-initial and short	qu	kliqu "clique" /ˈkliːk/
	Non-initial and long	kk, rarely kv	republikk "republic" /rɛpʊbˈlɪkː/
sk /sk/	Initial	squ	squeìt "(ice/roller) skate" /ˈskeːt/
	Non-initial and short	N/A
	Non-initial and long	squ	fresque "fresco" /ˈɸrɛsːkɛ/

• Hv is irregularly used before a in native Erish vocabulary, such as in hval "whale" /ˈxɑːl/
• Medial hv, kv have similar uses to the consonant plus j digraphs, indicating that the verb's conjugation is irregular and may result in softening.
• The hv, kv, qu spellings are rooted in how Old Erish, in contrast to the rest of the West Germanic languages, never resolved labiovelars into /Kw/ sequences. Instead, these were preserved into Old Erish, and failed to palatalize. When they were lost as phonemes, they simply delabialized from /Kʷ/ to /K/, helping phonemicize the palatal allophones.

G-Consonants
The letter g is not the only consonant grapheme of the last group of Erish consonants, but the set is essentially used to indicate hardness and softness not unlike h, k, and sk. It is grouped by itself because it represents six phonemes and has less consistency in which graphemes are used to represent hardness and softness for those phonemes. In principle, g is just the voiced counter part to h, k, and sk, with the addendum that before nasals it has a nasal pronunciation that can be hard or soft; the fricativization it experiences is expectable because it is voiced.
​

Letter(s)	Conditions or example	Softens initially	Softens elsewhere	Hard
g (short), cg (long)	Regular conditions	to /ʝ/ before e, i, y, æ, or œ, and another vowel	to /ʝ/ after e, i, y, æ, or œ, and another vowel	/ɣ/ in all other regular conditions
	Regular examples	gæst "guest" /ˈʝæsːt/	weges "ways" /ˈɣeːʝɛs/	gá "to go" /ˈɣoː/
	Fricative conditions	N/A	to /ʃ/ between the vowels e, i, y, æ, and œ, and the end of a word or the consonants d, s, or t	to /x/ between all other vowels or l or r, and the end of a word or the consonants d, s, or t
	Fricative examples	N/A	ig "I" /ˈiːʃ/	dag "day" /ˈdɑːx/
	Nasal conditions	N/A	to /ɲ/ between the vowels e, i, y, æ, and œ, and n	to /ŋ/ between all other vowels or l or r, and n
	Nasal examples	N/A	regn "rain" /ˈrɛɲːn/	Ragnar /ˈraŋːnɑ

• cg softens only if there is a preceding i or y, similar to k and ck.

Ideally, g should have a regular distribution of "soft in hard contexts" graphemes and "hard in soft contexts" graphemes, but the reality is that etymology means different graphemes are used in what should be regular contexts. Nonetheless, there aren't so many graphemes in use:
​

Desired consonants	Location and length	Grapheme(s)	Example
Soft g (/ʝ/, /ʃ/, /ɲ/)	Initial	j, gj (less common)	jorþ "earth" /ˈʝɔrːs/, gjos "they (f.)" /ˈʝoːs/
	Non-initial and short	j	garaj "garage" /ɣaˈrɑːʃ/
	Non-initial and long	zg, gj (rare)	brizg "bridge (game)" /ˈbrɪʝː/
Hard g (/ɣ/, /x/, /ŋ/)	Initial	w, gv	gvad "what" /ˈɣɑː/, west "west" /ˈɣɛsːt/
	Non-initial and short	w	intriw "intrigue" /ɪnˈtriːx/
	Non-initial and long	gg	rigg "rig" /ˈrɪɣː/

• Gj is mostly confined to native Erish vocabulary, and is not particularly common initially, and even more so non-initially. As with other Cj graphemes, non-initial gj indicates irregular conjugation.
• J is the main grapheme for representing soft-g in hard contexts, and g for representing regular soft-g, but there exceptions like Jesu "Jesus".
• In native Erish vocabulary, gv is restricted to wh-words such as gvad "what", but it is regularly used in loanwords when the donor language has g, such as gverilja "guerrilla" /ɣɛˈrɪʎːa/.
  • The wh-words in Erish were originally /xʷ/, but underwent the same vocalization as the third-person and demonstrative pronouns, making Old Erish have /ɣʷ/ as a marginal phoneme, until it delabialized during Middle Erish.
• W is the main consonant used to represent initial hard-g in native Erish vocabulary, and is more rare with loanwords. However, it is mandatory in non-initial, short contexts, much like j.
  • W was originally /w/ in Old Erish. It merged with /ɣ/ as a consequence of the fricative leniting to an approximant, effectively making /w/ first merge with /ɣʷ/, and then delabialize /ɣ/.
• Similar to the situation with k, long /ɣː/ failed to palatalize in Eastern dialects, and so zg is used, even though the grapheme is redundant in Hamnstead Erish.

Feedback Questions
Questions I personally have are:

• Does the type of spelling I have decently blend etymological orthographies like Icelandic and more phonemic ones? I recognize this is more an aesthetic question, but I'm interested in opinions.
  • One area I wonder about in particular is whether j and w should be used for representing non-initial /ʝ/ and /ɣ/. In my mind, they make sense since they are representing approximants, but w strikes me as rather... odd.
• Do the phonological developments seem like a good mixture of sharing some of the innovations that occurred in Norwegian and Swedish and Erish following its own path?
• I know a sibilant like [ʐ] (the likely realization of Proto-West Germanic *z, if not Proto-Germanic *z) devoicing to /ʂ/ isn't abnormal. However, given how universal the change of /z/ to / was throughout the surviving Germanic languages, how plausible is it to have Erish do this?

Resources

This last section is dedicated to the resources I think have been most useful in the creation of Erish, and that are valuable to people looking to make a Germanic language, or even a conlang in general. I'm certain some of these sources will be familiar to many members of this sub, but they're there for those to whom they aren't:

• Agee, A Glottometric Subgrouping of the Early Germanic Languages - This thesis provides a pretty good overview of how the Germanic languages developed at their earliest stages after Proto-Germanic. Even if you're not trying to make a Germanic language, I can't imagine that this wouldn't give you at least some ideas.
• Index Diachronica - Index Diachronica is a good site in concept and mostly in implementation. If you want to search for a general to sometimes comprehensive idea of the phonological histories of languages, or how certain phonemes tend to change over time, this is a good place to stop by.
  • I got a history of Proto-Norse to Old West Norse here, although I wound up having to directly go and sift through the """""human-readable""""" source because ID wasn't clear at times (and apparently misinterpreting at points). That's the major problem with ID - its sources or interpretation of those sources may be "sketch" or incomplete, to say the least.
• Jackson Crawford - It's one thing to read internet articles, or even textbooks about old Germanic languages. It's another to have some sort of access on demand to somebody who can actually explain to laypeople an old Germanic language, much less its culture. I cannot recommend his channel enough as a starting and reference point for somebody interested in Germanic conlanging, especially if you're going for a (sort-of-)North Germanic language.
• Ringe, A Linguistic History of English, vols. 1 & 2 - If you are looking for information about old Germanic languages, these are some of the best materials to look through for vocabulary, morphology, and phonology. Erish would not exist as it does without Ringe's reconstruction of Proto-West Germanic in Vol. 2, much less the far more consistent account of the phonological history of Northwest and West Germanic than is available on Wikipedia.
• Simon Roper - Though I can't say Simon has been as much a resource for me as Dr. Crawford - and as Simon himself acknowledges, his field is archaeology, not linguistics - he still provides good material about the phonological history of English, and information about Old English.
• Wikipedia - Wikipedia has articles about all manner of languages and their phonology, grammar, vocabulary, orthography, and so on (much less articles about those in and of themselves). Although obviously I've mainly relied on Germanic languages, I would be remiss to say that one should look exclusively at a particular family. Case in point, /d,ʝ/ devoicing and spirantizing to /s,ʃ/ was a feature inspired by Nahuatl.
• Wiktionary - Wiktionary has multiple features which are extremely useful. Beyond a Proto-Germanic category and Germanic Swadesh list appendix, Wiktionary has an immensely handy feature where translations are often provided through individual senses of English words - anybody wanting to reduce relexing should take note.

Conclusion

It's been a long post, so I won't take up so much more space. Seeing as how it's a common enough translation in initial posts, though, I would like to provide the Lord's Prayer in Erish:
Written Erish:

Faþern osren, Hlárden gwen bez í Hjomn,
Be namen zín werþe heligende;
Be ríked zítt kome;
Be wiljo zí skehe pá jorþo zí som í Hjomn;
Be geve til oss í dag ossert daglige brod,
end forláte oss skuldostos osros sá som wid forláte osros skuldos;
End be bringe ick pá oss í fresnos, men frælse pá oss frá yvel.
Zítt bez ríked, end mahten end ero í œighedo.
Amen.

​
Hamnstead Erish pronunciation:

[ˈɸɑːs̪ɐn ˌɔs̪ɾn̩ ˈxl̥ɔrːd̪n̩ ɰn̩ bəʃ ˌɛɪ̯ ˈʃɔmːn]
[ˈbɛɪ̯ː ˈnɑːmn̩ ˌʃɛɪ̯n ˌɰɛɾs̪ə ˈʃɛɪ̯ːlɪjn̪̩d̪ə]
[ˈbɛɪ̯ː ˈrɛɪ̯ːt͡ʃə ˌʃɛt̪ ˈkʷʰoːmə]
[ˈbɛɪ̯ː ˈɰɪʎ̟ːɔ ˌʃɛɪ̯ ˈʃɛɪ̯ːʃə ˌpɔʊ̯ ˈjʷɔrːs̪ə ˌʃɛɪ̯ s̪ɔm ˌɛɪ̯ ˈʃɔmːn]
[ˈbɛɪ̯ː ˈjɛɪ̯ːβ̞ə ˌt̪il ˌɔs̪ ˌɛɪ̯ ˈd̪ɑːx ˌɔs̪ɐt̪ ˈd̪ɑːxˌlijə ˈbɾoːs̪]
[n̪̩d̪ ɸɔɾˈlɔʊ̯t̪ə ˌɔs̪ ˈs̪kʷʊl̪ːd̪ɔs̪t̪ɔs̪ ˌɔs̪ɾɔs̪ ˌs̪ɔʊ̯ s̪ɔm ˌɰi ˈɔs̪ːɾɔs̪ ˈskʷʊl̪ːd̪ɔs̪]
[n̪̩d̪ ˈbɛɪ̯ː ˈbɾɪŋːə ˌɪt͡ʃ pɔ ˌɔs̪ ˌɛɪ̯ ˈɸɾ̥eːs̪ˌnɔʊ̯s̪ mn̩ ˈɸɾ̥æl̪ːs̪ə pɔ ˌɔs̪ ˌɸɾ̥ɔʊ̯ ˈyʉ̯ːβ̞l̩]
[ˌʃɛt̪ bəʃ ˈrɛɪ̯ːt͡ʃə n̪̩d̪ ˈmɑxːt̪n̩ n̪̩d̪ ˈɛɪ̯ːɾɔ ˌɛɪ̯ ˈœʏ̯ːˌjiˌʃːɛɪ̯s̪ɔ]
[ˈɑːmɛ̠n]

​
Gloss:

father-the.m.sg our.incl-m.sg lord-the.m.sg who.m.sg.dir be.fut.sg in Heaven
be.fut.sbjv name-the.m.sg thy.m.sg become-inf sanctify-ptcp.prs.m.sg
be.fut.sbjv realm-the.n.sg thy.n.sg come-inf
be.fut.sbjv will-the.f.sg thy.f.sg happen-inf on earth-the.f.sg thy.f.sg as in Heaven
be.fut.sbjv give-inf to us.incl.dat in day our.incl-n.sg daily-def.n.sg bread
and forgive-inf us.incl.dat guilt-the.f.pl our.incl-f.pl so as we.excl forgive-inf our.incl-f.pl guilt-pl
and be.fut.sbjv bring-inf not acc us.incl.acc in temptation but free-inf acc us.incl.acc from evil
thine be.fut.sg realm-the.n.sg and power-the.m.sg and glory-the.f.sg in eternity-the.f.sg
amen

​
English translation:

Our father, the Lord who will always be in Heaven,
May it always be that thy name sanctifies itself;
May it always be that thy kingdom comes;
May it always be that thy will comes upon your Earth as in Heaven;
May it always be that thou givest us our daily bread,
and forgive our guilts for us, as we forgive our guilts;
And may it always be that thou dost not bring us into temptation but free us from evil.
Thine will always be the kingdom, and the power and the glory in eternity.
Amen.

Notes about the translation:

• In essence, bez in this Prayer is used for "(will always) be...", and be for "(may it always be that)...". Bez and be are the future tense forms of weze ("to be") (the only verb with them), but this tense is often gnomic, indicating a timelessness and fundamental-fact-of-the-universeness.
  • Be is used here as a relic subjunctive with optative mood. In Erish, it is often used in prayers - Christian, Ardist (the native Erish religion), or otherwise - as a sort of "polite asking".
• Hjomn "(Christian) Heaven" in lines 1 and 4 is, similar to many Erish terms relating to Christianity, a loanword from Old Anglic (English) heofon, and is a doublet of Erish himmel ("sky")
• Werþe heligende (lit. "become sanctifying") in line 2 is an analytic mediopassive voice construction, similar in function to the -s suffix of North Germanic languages.
• When the consistently inclusive "we" (Christians and non-Christians) throughout the prayer changes to the exclusive wid in line 6, it indicates that Christians forgive everybody's guilts.
  • Christianity never really took off in Erishland beyond the Allamunnic minority, and "wasn't particularly cared for" until recently.
• Pá "(up)on" is used here as a direct object marker for "us" in line 7. In Erish, pá is used for animate direct objects.

Link to original blog post
Cherokee is the first Native American language to have their own writing system, invented by a Cherokee man named Sequoyah. Its history is somewhat like that of Korean Hangul, as they are both invented scripts created by individuals to write their native languages accurately for the first time, raising suspicions from the establishment before they were widely adopted and embraced by their compatriots.
As the only syllabary besides Japanese kana to be widely supported on major OSes, I decided I had to learn the Cherokee syllabary. And with 86 characters total, it was definitely a worthwhile challenge to learn.

Adaptation process

To adapt any script for a different language for English, we must consider its features and limitations. As English language consonants are somewhat different from the Cherokee language's consonants, I had to change some things around for maximum efficiency.

Assigning vowels

The Cherokee writing system uses 6 vowels - A /a/, E /e/, I /i/, O /o/, U , and V /ə̃/. (In romanised Cherokee, 'V' is a vowel sound.) These are relatively easy to map to their most common English equivalents:

• Ꭰ -> /a/
• Ꭱ -> /ɛ/
• Ꭲ -> /ɪ/
• Ꭳ -> /ɔ/
• Ꭴ -> /ʊ/
• Ꭵ -> /ə/

To represent the other common English vowels and diphthong sequences, digraphs are used in a largely intuitive manner:

• ᎠᎥ -> /æ/
• ᎢᎢ -> /iː/
• ᎣᎣ -> /ɔː/
• ᎤᎤ -> /uː/
• ᎠᎢ -> /aɪ/
• ᎡᎢ -> /eɪ/
• ᎣᎢ -> /ɔɪ/
• ᎤᎥ -> /ʊə/
• ᎠᎤ -> /aʊ/
• ᎢᎥ -> /ɪə/
• ᎣᎤ -> /oʊ/

To write a consonant followed by a diphthong, use the relevant syllable for the first part of the diphthong.
E.g.

• /mæ/ = ᎹᎥ ('MA' + 'V')
• /haɪ/ = ᎭᎢ ('HA' + 'I')
• /noʊ/ = ᏃᎤ ('NO' + 'U')

Assigning consonants

At first, the Cherokee syllabary's 17 consonants appear to be fairly intuitive, covering most of the consonants also present in English. Then you find out that:

• Not all consonant series cover all vowels. For instance, while there is a letter for each possible N-series syllable (NA Ꮎ, NE Ꮑ, NI Ꮒ, NO Ꮓ, NU Ꮔ, NV Ꮕ), there are only 5 letters for each M-series syllable (MA Ꮉ, ME Ꮊ, MI Ꮋ, MO Ꮌ, MU Ꮍ, but no letter for MV in many fonts), 3 letters for each T-series syllable (TA Ꮤ, TE Ꮦ, TI Ꮨ), and only 1 consonant for K-, HN-, and DL-.
• There is no bilabial stop (P B) or R-like consonant in the Cherokee language.
  • There is a QU-series representing syllables with /kʷ/, though.

Some extra work will be required, but it's not too hard to deal with. In this adaptation, the following changes were made:

• The QU series (/kʷ/) becomes the P series, as written Cherokee uses the QU series to represent /p/ in loanwords
• The L series (/l/) becomes the R (/ɹ/) series, as R is more common than L in English
• The TL series (/tˡ/) becomes the L series, as English does not have /tˡ/ and I wanted a distinct set for the /l/ sound.
• All letters representing -V syllables (e.g. NV Ꮕ, HV Ꮂ) have their vowels removed, effectively behaving like an alphabetic letter: Ꮕ = /n/, Ꮂ = /h/, etc.
• If the series does not have a syllable ending in -V, the last letter in the series becomes an alphabetic letter: MU Ꮍ = /m/, TI Ꮨ = /t/.
• If there is only 1 element in the series, it becomes an alphabetic letter: KA Ꭷ = /k/.
• HNA Ꮏ is used to write NG /ŋ/.
• DLA Ꮬ is used to write DH /ð/.

In addition, I use the following 2 diacritics to indicate additional consonant series, which are also increasingly been used in Cherokee texts.

• ̣ (dot below) - indicates a shift to a closely related consonant. The shift either changes from voiced consonant to unvoiced, or the other way round, depending on the series. E.g. GE Ꭸ -> KE Ꭸ̣, SO Ꮠ -> ZO Ꮠ̣, PA Ꮖ -> BA Ꮖ̣, WA Ꮹ -> VA Ꮹ̣.
  • It is also used for indicating that the M letter Ꮍ is to be pronounced with its original vowel: MU Ꮍ̣.
• ̤ (double dot below) - indicates additional fricatives not found in Cherokee, such as /f/ and /θ/. e.g. PA Ꮖ -> FA Ꮖ̤, TA Ꮤ -> THA Ꮤ̤, SA Ꮜ -> SHA Ꮜ̤.

This shows how the diacritics are used:

• B-series is derived from P-series with a dot.
• F-series is derived from P-series with double dots.
• V-series is derived from W-series with a dot.
• TI, TO and TU are derived from D-series with a dot.
• THA /θa/, THE /θɛ/, and TH are derived from T-series with double dots, while THI /θɪ/, THO /θɔ/ and THU /θʊ/ are derived from L-series with double dots.
• DHA /ða/, DHE /ðɛ/, DHI /ðɪ/, DHO /ðɔ/ and DHU /ðʊ/ are derived from D-series with double dots.
• KA, KE, KI, KO and KU are derived from G-series with a dot.
• NGA /ŋa/, NGE /ŋɛ/, NGI /ŋɪ/, NGO /ŋɔ/, and NGU /ŋʊ/ are derived from N-series with a dot.
• Z-series is derived from S-series with a dot.
• SH-series /ʃ/ is derived from S-series with double dots.
• ZH-series /ʒ/ is derived from C-series with double dots.

Special cases ᏍᏇᏒ̤ᎥᏢ Ꭸ̣ᎢᏒᎥᏍ

There are 2 forms of alphabetic /s/:

• Ꮝ - the default one to be used, e.g. /wans/ = ᏩᏅᏍ.
• Ꮢ - this variation is always used before Ꭵ /ə/, e.g. /səɹ/ = ᏒᎥᎸ. This was done because Ꮢ is more compact than Ꮝ in many Cherokee fonts.

Note on MV

I did not use the 'obsolete' letter for MV Ᏽ as many fonts still do not support it yet.

Letters

Table of syllables ᏖᎢᏋ̣ᎥᏢ ᎣᏋ̤ ᏏᏢᎥᏋ̣ᎥᏢᏍ

This shows all syllables that can be represented with Cherokee Script for English.

	/a/	/ɛ/	/ɪ/	/ɔ/	/ʊ/	/ə/	-
/-/	Ꭰ	Ꭱ	Ꭲ	Ꭳ	Ꭴ	Ꭵ	.
/p/	Ꮖ	Ꮗ	Ꮘ	Ꮙ	Ꮚ	ᏋᎥ	Ꮛ
/b/	Ꮖ̣	Ꮗ̣	Ꮘ̣	Ꮙ̣	Ꮚ̣	Ꮛ̣Ꭵ	Ꮛ̣
/f/	Ꮖ̤	Ꮗ̤	Ꮘ̤	Ꮙ̤	Ꮚ̤	Ꮛ̤Ꭵ	Ꮛ̤
/v/	Ꮹ̣	Ꮺ̣	Ꮻ̣	Ꮼ̣	Ꮽ̣	Ꮾ̣Ꭵ	Ꮾ̣
/m/	Ꮉ	Ꮊ	Ꮋ	Ꮌ	Ꮍ̣	ᎽᎥ	Ꮍ
/t/	Ꮤ	Ꮦ	Ꮧ̣	Ꮩ̣	Ꮪ̣	ᏘᎥ	Ꮨ
/d/	Ꮣ	Ꮥ	Ꮧ	Ꮩ	Ꮪ	ᏛᎥ	Ꮫ
/θ/	Ꮤ̤	Ꮦ̤	Ꮯ̤	Ꮰ̤	Ꮱ̤	Ꮨ̤Ꭵ	Ꮨ̤
/ð/	Ꮣ̤	Ꮥ̤	Ꮧ̤	Ꮩ̤	Ꮪ̤	ᏜᎥ	Ꮬ
/n/	Ꮎ	Ꮑ	Ꮒ	Ꮓ	Ꮔ	ᏅᎥ	Ꮕ
/k/	Ꭶ̣	Ꭸ̣	Ꭹ̣	Ꭺ̣	Ꭻ̣	ᎧᎥ	Ꭷ
/g/	Ꭶ	Ꭸ	Ꭹ	Ꭺ	Ꭻ	ᎬᎥ	Ꭼ
/ŋ/	Ꮎ̣	Ꮑ̣	Ꮒ̣	Ꮓ̣	Ꮔ̣	ᎿᎥ	Ꮏ
/s/	Ꮜ	Ꮞ	Ꮟ	Ꮠ	Ꮡ	ᏒᎥ	Ꮝ
/z/	Ꮜ̣	Ꮞ̣	Ꮟ̣	Ꮠ̣	Ꮡ̣	Ꮢ̣Ꭵ	Ꮝ̣
/ʃ/	Ꮜ̤	Ꮞ̤	Ꮟ̤	Ꮠ̤	Ꮡ̤	Ꮢ̤Ꭵ	Ꮝ̤
/ʒ/	Ꮳ̤	Ꮴ̤	Ꮵ̤	Ꮶ̤	Ꮷ̤	Ꮸ̤Ꭵ	Ꮸ̤
/tʃ/	Ꮳ	Ꮴ	Ꮵ	Ꮶ	Ꮷ	ᏨᎥ	Ꮸ
/dʒ/	Ꮳ̣	Ꮴ̣	Ꮵ̣	Ꮶ̣	Ꮷ̣	Ꮸ̣Ꭵ	Ꮸ̣
/ɹ/	Ꮃ	Ꮄ	Ꮅ	Ꮆ	Ꮇ	ᎸᎥ	Ꮈ
/l/	Ꮭ	Ꮮ	Ꮯ	Ꮰ	Ꮱ	ᏢᎥ	Ꮲ
/h/	Ꭽ	Ꭾ	Ꭿ	Ꮀ	Ꮁ	ᎲᎥ	Ꮂ
/w/	Ꮹ	Ꮺ	Ꮻ	Ꮼ	Ꮽ	ᏮᎥ	Ꮾ
/j/	Ꮿ	Ᏸ	Ᏹ	Ᏺ	Ᏻ	ᏴᎥ	Ᏼ

Syllable usage examples ᏏᏢᎥᏋ̣ᎥᏢ ᏳᏏᏨ̣ ᎡᎬᏌ̣ᎽᏋᎥᏢᏍ

	/a/	/ɛ/	/ɪ/	/ɔ/	/ʊ/	/ə/	-
-	/a/ Ꭰ (up, ᎠᏋ)	/ɛ/ Ꭱ (end, ᎡᏅᏛ)	/ɪ/ Ꭲ (it, ᎢᏘ)	/ɔ/ Ꭳ (on, ᎣᏅ)	/ʊ/ Ꭴ (ooze, ᎤᏍ̣)	/ə/ Ꭵ (again, ᎥᎨᏅ)	.
P	/pa/ Ꮖ (putty, ᏆᏗ̣)	/pɛ/ Ꮗ (pen, ᏇᏅ)	/pɪ/ Ꮘ (pin, ᏈᏅ)	/pɔ/ Ꮙ (pot, ᏉᏘ)	/pʊ/ Ꮚ (put, ᏊᏘ)	.	/p/ Ꮛ (up, ᎠᏋ)
M	/ma/ Ꮉ (mum, ᎹᎽ)	/mɛ/ Ꮊ (met, ᎺᏘ)	/mɪ/ Ꮋ (middle, ᎻᏛᎥᏢ)	/mɔ/ Ꮌ (mop, ᎼᏋ)	.	.	/m/ Ꮍ (am, ᎠᎥᎽ)
T	/ta/ Ꮤ (touch, ᏔᏨ)	/tɛ/ Ꮦ (ten, ᏖᏅ)	.	.	.	.	/t/ Ꮨ (at, ᎠᎥᏘ)
D	/da/ Ꮣ (dull, ᏓᏢ)	/dɛ/ Ꮥ (den, ᏕᏅ)	/dɪ/ Ꮧ (diss, ᏗᏍ)	/dɔ/ Ꮩ (dot, ᏙᏘ)	/dʊ/ Ꮪ (do, Ꮪ)	.	/d/ Ꮫ (mud, ᎹᏛ)
DH	.	.	.	.	.	.	/ð/ Ꮬ (the, ᏜᎥ)
N	/na/ Ꮎ (nut, ᎾᏘ)	/nɛ/ Ꮑ (net, ᏁᏘ)	/nɪ/ Ꮒ (new, ᏂᎤ)	/nɔ/ Ꮓ (knob, ᏃᏋ̣)	/nʊ/ Ꮔ (noob, ᏄᏋ̣)	.	/n/ Ꮕ (can, Ꭶ̣ᎥᏅ)
K	.	.	.	.	.	.	/k/ Ꭷ (class, ᎧᏝᏍ)
G	/ga/ Ꭶ (gull, ᎦᏢ)	/gɛ/ Ꭸ (get, ᎨᏘ)	/gɪ/ Ꭹ (give, ᎩᏮ̣)	/gɔ/ Ꭺ (gone, ᎪᏅ)	/gʊ/ Ꭻ (goose, ᎫᏍ)	.	/g/ Ꭼ (bug, Ꮖ̣Ꭼ)
NG	.	.	.	.	.	.	/ŋ/ Ꮏ (sing, ᏏᎿ)
S	/sa/ Ꮜ (sun, ᏌᏅ)	/sɛ/ Ꮞ (send, ᏎᏅᏛ)	/sɪ/ Ꮟ (sip, ᏏᏋ)	/sɔ/ Ꮠ (sock, ᏐᎧ)	/sʊ/ Ꮡ (soon, ᏑᏅ)	/sə/ ᏒᎥ (sir, ᏒᎥᎸ)	/s/ Ꮝ (as, ᎠᎥᏍ)
C	/tʃa/ Ꮳ (chance, ᏣᏅᏍ)	/tʃɛ/ Ꮴ (cherry, ᏤᎵ)	/tʃɪ/ Ꮵ (chip, ᏥᏋ)	/tʃɔ/ Ꮶ (chop, ᏦᏋ)	/tʃʊ/ Ꮷ (choose, ᏧᏍ̣)	.	/tʃ/ Ꮸ (hatch, ᎭᎥᏨ)
R	/ɹa/ Ꮃ (run, ᎳᏅ)	/ɹɛ/ Ꮄ (red, ᎴᏛ)	/ɹɪ/ Ꮅ (rig, ᎵᎬ)	/ɹɔ/ Ꮆ (rock, ᎶᎧ)	/ɹʊ/ Ꮇ (rookie, ᎷᎩ̣)	.	/ɹ/ Ꮈ (are, ᎠᎸ)
L	/la/ Ꮭ (lunch, ᏝᏅᏨ)	/lɛ/ Ꮮ (lens, ᏞᏅᏍ)	/lɪ/ Ꮯ (lick, ᏟᎧ)	/lɔ/ Ꮰ (lock, ᏠᎧ)	/lʊ/ Ꮱ (loop, ᏡᏋ)	.	/l/ Ꮲ (bull, Ꮚ̣Ꮲ)
H	/ha/ Ꭽ (hull, ᎭᏢ)	/hɛ/ Ꭾ (hen, ᎮᏅ)	/hɪ/ Ꭿ (his, ᎯᏍ)	/hɔ/ Ꮀ (horn, ᎰᎸᏅ)	/hʊ/ Ꮁ (hook, ᎱᎧ)	.	/h/ Ꮂ (lah, ᏝᎲ)
W	/wa/ Ꮹ (one, ᏩᏅ)	/wɛ/ Ꮺ (when, ᏪᏅ)	/wɪ/ Ꮻ (will, ᏫᏢ)	/wɔ/ Ꮼ (won, ᏬᏅ)	/wʊ/ Ꮽ (wool, ᏭᏢ)	.	/w/ Ꮾ (ow, ᎠᏮ)
Y	/ja/ Ꮿ (young, ᏯᎿ)	/jɛ/ Ᏸ (yell, ᏰᏢ)	/jɪ/ Ᏹ (yeet, ᏱᎢᏘ)	/jɔ/ Ᏺ (yolk, ᏲᎧ)	/jʊ/ Ᏻ (use, ᏳᏍ)	.	/j/ Ᏼ (hey, ᎮᏴ)

Order of learning

1. - series
2. P W M D T G N S C R L H W Y series
3. B F V DH TH K NG Z SH ZH J series

Numerals ᏂᎤᎽᎥᎸᎥᏢᏍ

Numerals are based on select Cherokee letters representing the English pronunciations and are differentiated from normal letter sequences using the combining macron below diacritic ̱.

• 1 - Ꮹ̱ (from /wan/ ᏩᏅ)
• 2 - Ꮪ̱ (from /tʊ/ Ꮪ̣)
• 3 - Ꮅ̱ (from 2nd syllable of /θɹɪ/ Ꮨ̤Ꮅ)
• 4 - Ꮙ̱ (from /fɔɹ/ Ꮙ̤Ꮈ)
• 5 - Ꮖ̱ (from /faɪv/ Ꮖ̤ᎢᏮ̣)
• 6 - Ꮟ̱ (from /sɪks/ ᏏᎧᏍ)
• 7 - Ꮜ̱ (originally from /sɛvən/ ᏎᏮ̣ᎥᏅ, except that /sɛ/ Ꮞ was changed to /sa/ Ꮜ since /sɛ/ looks too much like the numeral 4)
• 8 - Ꭱ̱ (from /eɪt/ ᎡᎢᏘ)
• 9 - Ꮎ̱ (from /naɪn/ ᎾᎢᏅ)
• 0 - Ꮆ̱ (from 2nd syllable of /zɪroʊ/ Ꮟ̣ᎶᎤ)

For example, '1' is Ꮹ̱, and 2019/07/20 is Ꮪ̱Ꮆ̱Ꮹ̱Ꮎ̱/Ꮜ̱/Ꮪ̱Ꮆ̱.

Syllable structure ᏏᏢᎥᏋ̣ᎥᏢ ᏍᏘᎳᎧᏨᎥᎸ

Letters are arranged linearly, just as Latin does.
E.g. /stɹɐkt/ = ᏍᏘᎳᎧᏘ (literally 'S', 'T', 'RA', 'K', 'T')

Sample texts

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

ᏳᏂᏮ̣ᎥᎸᏒᎥᏢ ᏗᎧᏝᎥᎴᎢᏒ̤ᎥᏅ ᎣᏋ̤ ᎯᎤᎽᎥᏅ ᎳᎢᏘᏍ
ᎣᏢ ᎯᎤᎽᎥᏅ Ꮘ̣ᎢᎿᏍ ᎠᎸ Ꮙ̣ᎸᏅ Ꮛ̤ᎵᎢ ᎠᎥᏅᏛ ᎢᎫ̣ᎥᏢ ᎢᏅ ᏗᎬᏂᏗ̣ ᎠᎥᏅᏛ ᎳᎢᏘᏍ. Ꮥ̤Ꭲ ᎠᎸ ᎡᏅᏓᎤᏛ ᏫᏘ̤ ᎵᎢᏒ̣ᎥᏅ ᎠᎥᏅᏛ Ꭺ̣ᏅᏒ̤ᎥᏅᏍ ᎠᎥᏅᏛ Ꮡ̤Ꮫ ᎠᎥᎧᏘ Ꮩ̣ᎤᏮᎥᎸᏛᏍ ᏩᏅ ᎥᎾᏜᎥᎸ ᎢᏅ Ꭵ ᏍᏈᎵᏘ ᎣᏋ̤ Ꮛ̣ᎳᏜᎥᎸᎱᏛ.
(ᎠᎸᏗ̣ᎧᎥᏢ Ꮹ̱ ᎣᏋ̤ ᏜᎥ ᏳᏂᏮ̣ᎥᎸᏒᎥᏢ ᏗᎧᏝᎥᎴᎢᏒ̤ᎥᏅ ᎣᏋ̤ ᎯᎤᎽᎥᏅ ᎳᎢᏘᏍ)

Excerpt from a short story I wrote a while ago

For comparison, you can view the original one here.
ᎠᎢ ᎭᎥᏛ Ꭵ ᏍᏘᎴᎢᏅᏨ̣ ᏛᎵᎢᎽ Ꮣ̤ᎥᏘ ᎾᎢᏘ.
ᎢᏅ Ꮣ̤ᎥᏘ ᏛᎵᎢᎽ, ᎠᎢ Ꮖ̤ᎤᏅᏛ ᎹᎢᏎᏢᏋ̤ ᎥᏪᎢᎧᎥᏂᎿ, ᏝᎢᎢᎿ ᎣᏅ ᏐᏋ̤Ꮨ ᎬᎵᎢᏅ ᎬᎳᏍ, ᎢᏅ Ꭵ Ꮖ̤ᎥᏅᏘᎥᏏ Ꭱ̱-Ꮘ̣Ꮨ ᏮᎥᎸᏢᏛ ᏒᎥᎳᎤᏅᏛᎥᏛ Ꮖ̣Ꭲ Ꭺ̣ᎽᏈᎤᏘᎥᎸᏍ. ᏜᎥ ᏡᎻᏅᎥᏅᏍ ᎣᏋ̤ Ꮛ̣ᏟᎿᎩ̣Ꮏ ᎼᎤᏕᎽᏍ ᎠᎥᏅᏛ ᏬᎣᎽ, ᏥᎥᎸᏊ̤Ꮲ ᏥᏋᏗ̣ᎤᏅ ᎻᎤᏏ̣Ꭷ Ꮘ̤ᏢᏛ Ꮧ̤ ᎡᎸ. ᎣᏢᏙ̤Ꭴ ᎡᏮ̣ᎵᏟ̤Ꮏ ᏡᎧᏛ Ꮛ̣ᏠᎩ̣Ꭲ ᎠᎥᏅᏛ ᏍᎧᏪᎸ, ᎢᏘ Ꮛ̣ᎶᏘ Ꮋ Ꮖ̣ᎥᎧ Ꮪ̣ Ꮩ̤ᎤᏍ̣ ᏕᎢᏍ. ᎣᏋ̤ ᎣᏢ ᏜᎥ Ꭺ̣ᎽᏈᎤᏘᎥᎸᏍ ᎠᎢ ᏐᎣ, Ꮹ̱ ᎣᏋ̤ Ꮥ̤Ꮍ ᏮᎥᏍ ᏋᏞᎢᎢᎿ ᎹᎢ Ꮗ̤ᎢᏮ̣ᎥᎸᎥᏘ ᏐᎿ! ᎠᎢ Ꮳ̣ᎽᏋ ᎠᎥᏅᏛ ᏟᎢᏋ ᎢᏅ Ꮶ̣Ꭲ ᎣᎤᏮ̣ᎥᎸ ᏜᎥ ᏌᎢᏘ. ᎠᎢ Ꮥ̤Ꮕ ᏐᎣ ᎹᎢ ᎭᎤᏍ, ᎠᎥᏅᏛ ᎠᎢ ᏎᏛ “ᎭᎢ” Ꮪ̣ ᎹᎢ Ꮗ̣ᏍᏘ ᎺᎢᏘᏍ, Ꮁ ᏮᎥᎸ ᏪᎢᏗ̣Ꮏ ᎠᎤᏘᏌᎢᏛ. Ꮻ ᏬᎣᎧᏛ Ꮪ̣ᎨᏜᎥᎸ, ᎭᎥᏫ̣Ꮏ Ꭵ ᏥᎥᎵ ᏣᎥᏘ ᎥᏆ̣ᎤᏘ ᏜᎥ Ꭺ̣ᎽᏈᎤᏘᎥᎸ ᎨᎢᎽ ᎠᎢ ᏮᎥᏍ ᏮᎥᎸᎩ̣Ꮏ ᎣᏅ ᎥᎸᏟᎥᎸ.
“ᏐᎤ ᏩᏘᏍ Ꮣ̤ᎥᏘ Ꭻ̣Ꮲ ᎨᎢᎽ ᎪᎾ Ꮘ̣ ᎥᏆ̣ᎤᏘ, ᎡᎢ?” ᏩᏅ ᎣᏋ̤ Ꮥ̤Ꮍ ᎠᏍᎧᏛ. “ᎢᏋ̤ Ᏻ ᏢᎥᏮ̣Ꮫ ᎹᎵᎣᎤ, ᏳᏢ ᏢᎥᏮ̣ Ꮧ̤Ꮝ!” ᎠᎢ ᏎᏛ. “ᎣᎣᏒᎥᎽ!!! Ꭶ̣ᏅᏘ ᏪᎢᏘ Ꮪ̣ ᏏᎢ ᎢᏘ!” ᎢᏅᏌᎢᏛ ᎻᎢ ᏜᎥ Ꮖ̤ᎢᎥᎸ Ꮪ̣ Ꭹ̣ᎢᏋ ᎻᎢ ᎪᎤᎢᎿ Ꮘ̣Ꭸ̣ᎢᎽ ᏍᏘᎶᎿᎬᎥᎸ.
Ꮻ ᏬᎣᎧᏛ ᎢᏅᏚ̣ Ꭵ Ꮻ̣Ꮻ̣Ꮫ ᏌᏅᏎᏘ. ᎠᎢ ᎴᎻᏂᏍᏛ ᏜᎥ ᎺᎼᎵᏍ ᎣᏋ̤ ᏆᏍᏘ ᏌᎽᎥᎸᏍ, ᏋᏞᎢᎢᎿ ᎴᏘᎶᎤ Ꮻ̣ᏗᎣᎤ ᎨᎢᎽᏍ ᎢᏅ ᏜᎥ Ꭻ̣Ꮲ Ꮞ̤ᎢᏛ, ᎢᏮ̣ᎥᏅ Ꮩ̤Ꭴ ᏜᎥ ᏌᏅ ᎠᎤᏘᏌᎢᏛ ᏈᎢᎧᏛ ᎠᎥᏘ Ꮙ̱Ꮪ̱ ᏗᎬᎵᎢᏍ ᎠᎥᏅᏛ ᎺᏢᏘᎥᏛ ᎡᏮ̣ᎵᏟ̤Ꮏ ᎡᏢᏍ.

art type of hobby model building: drawing of reconstructing personal language. it is a constructed language. made under the name of dvkkr. (\'ju:ka) (that a is central mid open). structure: it has is complement(c) verb(v) noun or nominal verb(n) adnoun or adverb(a): when- who/what has/does/is -then doing-something to-where what-by theme. words modify a word which afters. each word can be stem of either of these. ^{@#“=/"·%()_][\';lkjhgf.d.sazxcv.b.nm,.h./\'"-w} í.i o i) m n h ą: b t c-kr x: n) s sk k-xci: m) f d l-r: f) z tr ch kv. i) ie iu ei,ï ui u-: n) e,é ö,ev,eu â aü-ev (oi) va o,ó: m) i-ä aï u-ô (oü): f) a,ai . {}[]@>.?>?>/..,¨¨"'\'΄][.,./)_+=-0/./?.>,)(&^{@#$%&Ζ&ΖΑΖ&>?>/?.,μμ.¨"}{Π+=-990987<,.>} v. der ar each werd is derived from same stem: three: transive,en ambi e self tansive er, intransive es.(est) those forming.self ex.c zain tansive zui self, zeuin int. if I believ essential for a motion is, things that simting is needed to amonclish to read, to travel needs at least destination, might the origin. aonoun potents these roles, I havto treat these nouns weighten samely because it's the aim of the conlang. course condition differantiates the meanung of an action, it's another story. lexicon: adoptating germanic words. also lots of romance. few words are generated in it. fa cioc n et. fi xlten siv. u uiten bon dvkkam. sen et skei! naien svénsc? neac svénsca. derivation of a stemme. keit: rather is a phase with adposotion aside from declension: xlten that has a object afterwads -- it is v: a t phrasa a, it is something related to t: xltô verbal a: xltê verbal a: xlte a: xlto a: f xlt a: xlt (nominal) v or noun: c t/xltc ergative noun: s t/xlts suject noun, pos.: n t/xltn to where xlt is: z t/xltz at whe t is: d t/ td out of where t is: t t/xltt accusative noun. words yet to be attested: bien skul fem krioco vaalom. -- pile of preious.
art type: to reconstruct a personal language: constructed language. )(^@W#$%Y(【】{}‘、“；離開/。，=)(/&"·$%&Ç()):%"№;%:?:()_09866098696R54123456875678)(&^@#$%&@@ under the-(feminin) name of: lvkk (\'ju:ka).
structure: complement(c) verb(v): cvvccc. it roughly is when- who/what 's/'ll/'d -then doing something to where which is what-by theme. clause forewards to modify a word afterwards. adnoun or adverb(a) is an element of the last element. each word can be either of these. qwertyuiop][\';lkjhgfdsazxcvbnm,.//.,,..\':"][pž-0/.,ąčęėįšųū9009ūųšįė
last what I am undicids is, w o x o sk, U ü o iu, í o ie, ö o eu o ev, d o l for j., w o x o n.a fo glotta stop. v o ev san aü. i o ei sa aï. phone e ei rh t ts u ú i í o ó a á s sh dr v ng kh ll l x.na c b n m wertzuioasdfhklñçxcvbnm then... wq eë éei èä r t zts ü ù.ve ú.ve..ev ïî ì.ei í.ie.ei o ö ò ño.oou äae àea áau s sk d.j.fiw otic fw.ximant hng kq.kh.h l x.kssh ck v.u bp n m. graphs: e r t z u i o a s d f h k x c v b n m. digraph: eu-aü ù.ei-aï ui iu ia va oi i open mid frontvpwel u open mid back vowel ê â sa o as ô d ne an uo-va f xa ax kr kl ct. ù.
m n h ąų (ę) b t c k (q) kv s sk k (ç) f z d 'l. r)..( kv z ci x lr e. ie iu ei,ï ui u e,é ö â,aü oi,va o,ó i-ä u-ô (oü) a,(aï) for ex, z cuno mean is same with cunoz. actual prepositional ts is tsa, sufixing ts is tsui.
{}[]@>.?>?>/..,쨨"'\'΄][π?.,./)+=-0/./?.>,)(&^{%%$12#!@#$%&Ζ&ΖΑΖ&}()_ΝΜ>?>/?.,μμ.¨"}{Π+=-990987<,.> v. der ar each werd is derived from same stem: three: transive,en ambi e self tansive er, intransive es.(est) those forming.self ex.c zain tansive zui self, zeuin int. * lexicon: adoptating germanic words. also lots of romance. few words are generated in it.
fà cloc en et.
fì xltn siv.
sno et sé!
nà en svénsc? nàca svensca.
derivation of a stemme. / xäit /
xltn nominal v or v: t,er infinitif: t,es sellf causativw.: xltô verbal a: xlte forwarding a: diside' ft t f o f t tf. ci s f t, tf fxlt afterwarding a: xlt noun or a: xltk ergative noun: xltê suject noun: xltz locative noun: xltt accusative noun.--pevesion.
paevversion: art type .to reconstruct a personal language .constructed language
name .lvkk \'ju:ka\
structure .complement(c) .verb(v) cvvccc. practically c is ergative or subject or accusative or locative that are complement of verb. it is a verb seconded. relative clause afterwards a word that they modify. adposition afterwards a word that they modify. a clause begins along a personal noun or demonstrative noun. an adposition begins along an interrogative noun. an adnoun or adverb(ad.) forwards an element to modify them. each word can be noun or modifier or verb.
phonemes é s hr th tc cd cn ts ú í ó á shr t dl- f ng g j kh tr w b n m ï ü ä graphs. e xx r t x x x z u i o a s d d f h k x x- c v b n m. digraph eu-aü tr tz tc ei-aï ui iu ia va oi i open mid vpwel u open mid rounded vowel ê â sa o as ô d ne an dr dz dc zh xb ln lm uo-va f xa ax kr kl ct.
punctation. ! ( ) ª º ' 'a 'u 'i `h ´glottal stop ¨ * . ? \ / since all v are transitive then fore word acc. v differentiate from after word acc v. whitc place the acc is is the key. yes intransitive like being gentle is action some way. lexicon - it is an adoptation of germanics, lots of romance. few are rather generated.
agso a urt e utra , wh a caries non switch a with bien se. constuct a being some... finite.be something phrase the the it may a adfectivise.r. fa cloc en et.
fi kltn êu.
sô et seï.
naë en ëvénëk. néak êvénêka.
(words)
basic of derivation of a word. xªlt
xltn nominal verb o verb
xltô (kltne) verbal ad.
xlte forwarding ad.
fxlt afterwarding ad.
xlt noun o ad.
xltk ercative noun
xltê suject noun
xltz locative noun
xltst from where noun
xltt accusative noun.
prversion
art type - to reconstruct language - constructed language lºvk'kª name - iukk 'ju:ka\
structure - c(v)vc. a complement(c) may an ergative or an object. it is a v2. pratically a sv/ova. primarily- relative clause afterwards a word that they modify. adposition afterwards a word that they modify. a clause begins with a personal noun or demonstrative noun. an adposition begins with an interrogative noun. making a word- an adnoun or adverb(ad.) forwards an element to modify it. each word can be noun or morpheme.
graph - eé rhr tt zts vg uú l' lh o ss-ií oó aá ssh dd fv o f ze f hng kkh xss-' ctch bb nn mm. digraph eu-aü tr tz tc ei-aï ui iu ia va oi i oen mid povwl u oen mid ounded vowel ê s â sa o as an dr dz dc ff kk zt zk zh xb ln lm uo-va f xa ax kr kl ct.
eln dvt drie en dveï dil. punctation - ! ( ) ª º ' 'a 'u 'i `the vowel has acca u which it is a rounded vowel ´the owel has glottal stop-¨ i which it is a unrounded vowel * . ? \ /
written form rhcn- vocalic form it is réhcân.
hearing - clearer at beginning of phrase. a phrase loses the clarity till another phrase begins.
lexicon - it is an adoptation of germanics, little of romance. few are rather generated.
fa cioc en et.
fi kitn lu.
lne et se.
nal en lvxnlc. - n¨av lvénlca.
(words)
basic of variation of a word - xªlt
kltn nominal verb o verb
kltne ad. verb
sklt imcomplete o ad.
cklt complete o ad.
kite forwarding ad.
fkit ad. afterwarding
kit noun o participle
kitc agent noun
kitê suject noun
kltz locative noun
kltt object noun.
prev er pliter Posted byu/giuskintcioooooooooo

29 days ago

art type - constructed language - of reconstruction
name - lvkk (remake) 'ju:ka\
structure - vcvc. a complement(c) may an ergative or an object. v2 for an extent. foremost verb(v) is optional. info basis it is focused, indication, place of occurence of motion. primarily- relative clause afterwards a word that they modify. adposition afterwards a word that they modify. a clause begins with a personal noun or demonstrative noun. an adposition begins with an interrogative noun. making a word- primarily a morpheme, adnoun or adverb(ad.), forwards an element to modify. each word can be noun or morpheme.
graph - e-¨ r t z v-u-` ü l-i-´ o-º ö a-ª s d h k w c b n m. digraph eu-au-v ei-ai-l tr-rt tz ts zr an sr-rs st sk sw sb sn sm dr-rd uo-ua-a f-kv hr kr kl cr cd cl cn cm br bl.
numeral- o.inmfvksba-io-no.
punctation - ! ( ) ' ` u which a ounded vowel ´ i which is a unrounded vowel ^ * . _ - ? \ /
hearing - clearer at beginning of phrase. a phrase are losing the clarity till another phrase begins. accepting intonational last particle.
lexicon - it is an adoptation of germanics, little of romance. few are rather generated.
fa cloc on hd. - kva cloºc ön 'd
fi kldn zlv. - kvi kªldn zul
zn hd sei. - z¨n d sé'
nac on zvnzc. - n¨c' ön zv¨nzc'^
(words)
basic of variation of a word - kld
kldn (verb near past or near future) \an\
skld (verbal ad. incompete) \sha?-\shat\
ckld (verbal ad. complete) \ga?-\gat\
klde (verbal indicative ad. live) \a\
fkld (adposition) \kvi-\kva\
kld (noun-morpheme)
kldc (nominal subjective) \ga\
kldz (nominal ergative) \sa\
kldd (nominal objective) \ta.

piler

art type- constructed language -- reconstruction
name- lvkk (remake) 'ju:ka\
structure - vcvc. a complement(c) may an ergative or an object. v2 for an extent. foremost verb(v) is optional. info basis it is focused, indication, place of occurence of the motion.
primarily relative clause afterwards a word that they modify. adposition afterwards a word that they modify. a clause begins with a personal noun or demonstrative noun. an adposition begins with an interrogative noun.
making a noun- primarily an element, adnoun or adverb(ad.), forwards to modify an element.
graph- e-E-é-xe-¨ r-P t-T z-Z u-Y-ú-v-xu-` ü i-L-í-l-xi-´ o-O-ó-xo-º ö a-á-A-xa-ª s-S d-D h-H k-K w-W c-C b-B n-N m-M. digraph eu-au-xv ei-ai-xl xñ t tr-rt tz ti ts z an sr-rs st si sk sñ sb sn sm dr-rd di uo-uô-ua-xa-xe f-kv hr hi kr ki-kl cr-c ct-cd cl cn cm br-b bl-bi.
numeral- o.inmfvksba-io-no. zif.alndvedalvlrvenzizslvàktnºln alnziv dvezif
punctation- they are optional, ! ( ) º ª ' ` ´ central vowel *unspecified , . _ - ? \ /
hearing- clearer at beginning of a phrase. a phrase are slightly losing the clarity till another phrase begins. accepting intonational last particle.
lexicon- it is primarily an adoptation of germanic words with little of romance. few are generated in lvkk.
fa cloc on hd. - fa cloc ön ªd
fi kldn su. - fi kªldªn süe
zn hd sei. - z¨n ªd së
(words)
basic of variation of a word - kld, to call.
kldn (verb)
skld (ad.fut)
ckld (ad.per)
klde (ad.pro)
fkld (adposition)
kld (noun)
kldc (a noun)
kldz (a noun)
kldd (a noun).prev.version
pilers
type constructed language
name/title Lúecae 'ju:ka\
structure vcvc. to form an avo, first complement(c) is ergative determined by verb before it, second c is object determined by verb before it. v2 for some extent so foremost v is optional. info basis it is focused-indication-topic.
primarily relative clause afterwards a noun they modify. adposition afterwards a noun they modify.
compound element forwards an element to modify. also an adjective, same as to an adjectival phrase. adverbial phrase forwards a verb to modify.
graph e-E-é-xe ê r-P t-T z-Z u-Y-ú-v-xu û ü i-L-í-l-xi î o-O-ó-xo ô ö a-á-A-xa â s-S d-D h-H k-K ñ-Ñ x-X c-C b-B n-N m-M. digraph eu-êu-au ei-êi-ai t tr-rt tz ti ts z sr-rs st si sk sñ sb sn sm dr-rd di uo-uô-ua f-kv hr hi kr-k ki-kl cr-c ct-cd cl cn cm br-b bl-bi.
numeral oinmfvksba,io,no.
punctation ! ( ) 'elision `variation ´accentuate central *unspecified , . _ - ? \ /.
lexicon is of an adoptation of germanic words. with little of romance. few are generated in lúecae.
hyphen equals a allograph boundary.
*-the ortography simulates rynic script. meaning a runic is acceptale.
prev. vers. plire
art type constructed language
name Lúecae \'ju:ka\
structure vcvc. to form an avo, first complement(c) is ergative determined by verb before it, second c is object determined by verb before it. it is v2 for some extent so foremost v is optional*1. info basis it is focused-indication-topic.
regulation primarily a relative clause afterwards a noun it modifies. adposition afterwards a noun it modifies.
compound element forwards an element it modifies. also an adjective, same as to an adjectival phrase*2.
graph e-E-é-xe ê r-P t-T z-Z u-Y-ú-v-xu û ü i-L-í-l-xi î o-O-ó-xo ô ö a-á-A-xa â s-S d-D f-F-kv h-H k-K ñ-Ñ c-C b-B n-N m-M. roughly eh a rr tch ss wu oo yu ee ih oh ah ur ah a sh t kv h kh ng k p n m.
numeral oinmfvksbacez.
pontation ! ( ) ` ´ ^ * , . _ - ? \ /.
lexicon is of an adoptation of germanic words. actually few are rather generated in it.
*1. glossed like this, ball kick (somebody, it may *obsent) goal., would be somebody kicked a ball to the goal. *2. s/he'ill go out, may be glossing, future-s/he goes out. *3.

tl;dr - If I have a Spanish word written down, I know exactly how to say it out loud. Are there any\* exceptions?
Asterisk *: There definitely are exceptions, like México and el email, but see below for why these are not interesting to me.
​
Most promising lead: Greek-derived words that had chi in the Greek spelling, but the chi is not word-initial. Does Spanish have a cognate of the English word prochiral? If it keeps the CH digraph, then it 100% counts. (Spanish has this word, it is spelled proquiral in Spanish, so the pronunciation is obvious, they nixed the CH.) Similarly, Greek-derived words with silent word-initial letters, like psicología, where the silent letter is no longer word-initial. Maybe a Spanish cognate of sociopsychology? (No luck there, either, it's psicología social in Spanish.) The fact that Spanish allows Greek spelling vestiges in word-initial position is still very promising, in my opinion.
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Slightly Short-ish Version:
This is what I actually mean:
(1) I don't count loanwords that are obviously loanwords, like el email or el rock (la música).
(2) A huge exception is words derived from proper nouns, a classic is México and the derived terms like mexicanas. (See Footnote/Tangent 3 below.) This word would be a good example, because the letter X actually sounds like a J, but it is spelled X. Whether México even qualifies as a loanword is debatable, see the footnote. It was supposed to be a loanword, but the Spanish Conquistadors messed it up. Sort of like the German word das Handy which means "the mobile telephone / the cellular phone" and which is supposed to be a loanword from English, but the meaning in English is completely different. (A handy thing = una cosa útil.)
(3) When I say "the pronunciation is obvious", I actually mean unambiguous and not necessarily obvious. See the super long version for examples of Spanish words and Spanish orthography rules that are not obvious to native speakers in some cases.
(4) When I say "the pronunciation", I actually mean in a given dialect for a given speaker and even in a given context, if it makes a difference (which it can). Does the speaker have seseo or distinción? Words like cielo will sound quite different, but the pronunciation in a given dialect is obvious. Does the speaker have sheísmo and dropped S's because she is from Argentina? Well then, vos llegás is going to sound like "vos shegá" with no S at the end, but it is still obvious how to pronounce llegás. It is just fairly unusual-sounding to most of the rest of the Spanish-speaking world.
(5) Note that the pronunciation of Carlos Slim is indeed unambiguous, the last name is pronounced "eslim". Also, Slim is a family name and a proper noun, and exempted due to reason (2) above. The pronunciation of el rock star is also unambiguous, it is "el roc estar", with an E inserted at the beginning of "star". This is also exempted due to reason (1), it is an obvious loanword. Note that the Spanish verb estar was originally spelled star, but the E was added for orthographic reasons. The syllable with A needed to retain the stress, which is why it conjugates to está rather than esta, and which is why the present subjunctive is not based on the first person singular, the present subjunctive needed to have the E added to the beginning as well, giving esté. The fact that the first person singular ends in -oy is not why the subjunctive is irregular, although otherwise-unexplained irregularity in the first person singular usually do carry over into the subjunctive, e.g. tener, yo tengo, no tengas.
​
Super Long Version (Sorry):
Okay, I've studied linguistics a decent amount, especially as it pertains to Spanish orthography and phonology, so I will admit that the title is oversimplified. Here are the exceptions:
(1) Loanwords that are obviously loanwords and have not been made orthographically sound (in Spanish orthography) do not count. An easy example is el email which actually has several pronunciations that I have heard from native hispanohablantes. (See Footnote/Tangent 1 below.) Notice that loanwords are sometimes immediately respelled in Spanish to fit Spanish orthography. A very common change is replacing LL with L, which is faithful to the pronunciation in the original language (in every case I have seen) and two L's versus one L looks pretty similar in lowercase. Notice that el rock, the type of music, is not orthographically sound in Spanish (K is rare but valid, the word-final CK cluster is invalid). Despite being orthographically unsound, the pronunciation is obvious and unambiguous, it is homophone with el roc, and the K is still there for no good reason.
(2) When I say "the pronunciation is obvious", I don't actually mean obvious, I actually mean unambiguous. You might need to think about it for a while to apply the rules correctly. Some of the rules are fairly misleading, especially for native speakers who would never "mess up" with a real Spanish word, but will misapply the rule when given a nonce word that is valid. An example of an "often messed up" rule is that H does not break diphthongs. This is why el búho needed the accent on the U, to break the UO diphthong and make it a two-syllable word. (Note that the Old Spanish spelling was el buho because an H used to break a diphthong, and in that case it immediately becomes two syllables, the stress is on the first syllable, and an accent would be redundant and thus disallowed.) Owls are common enough that native Spanish speakers are likely to spell búho correctly, but if given a nonce word (a word that doesn't exist), the Spanish speaker may break syllables at the H without realizing the two vowels should form a diphthong so long as they are compatible to do so. An E followed by an A will not form a diphthong, e.g. realidad. A hand-waving reason for this is that E and A are the two "strongest" vowels in Spanish, and they really do not want to be the subordinate vowel in a diphthong, so they just won't. In contrast, U and I are very "weak" and love to be subordinate. This has something to do with ablauts, and this is why Spanish has pedir -> pidiendo and morir -> muriendo. It's actually related to sing, sang, sung, song in English. The Spanish vowel O cannot be handled by my hand-waving rule because of the role it plays in affixes quite often, for instance: antiguo, antigua, antigüedad. You can ignore the dieresis on the U (the letter ü), I could come up with an example with a plain U if I could think of a -uo/-ua adjective where the final consonant is not a G. Okay, how about continuo, continua, continuidad. I really wish it had -edad like antigüedad and not -idad, because such a word would be valid and may exist, but -dad is not the only affix for making adjectives into nouns in Spanish.
​
Footnote/Tangent 1: I have obviously seen correo electrónico, which is probably the only officially sanctioned way of saying it according to the RAE, but the RAE is not always right, especially for such new neologisms. (See Footnote/Tangent 2 below.) I have also seen correl, a portmanteau of correo electrónico. I have also been told el emilio upon asking specifically if "el email" sounds valid, and this is recognized as a joke but is popular. I have not heard it used seriously. "El email" is said and written very seriously.
​
Footnote/Tangent 2: In fact, the RAE has a very refreshing history of "fixing errors like this", where they are errors in my personal opinion because they so strongly go against common usage including by educated native speakers. The RAE is pretty good about fixing these, but here are some English language "authorities" (self-proclaimed) who are very bad at this: The New York Times style guide, which still says e-mail (not email, never) and which said Internet with a capital I for about 12 years longer than it should. Oh, and health care instead of healthcare, even when they are quoting the speech of a US government official who always writes "healthcare" (one word) in writing, and does so several times every day, and in published documents. No, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen was not heard to say "growth in the health care sector was especially strong." I know she said it out loud, but she always writes "healthcare sector", one word. Dear New York Times, you just twisted her one word into two words.
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Footnote/Tangent 3: Saying that México is a loanword is a bit of a stretch, because we are not talking about the spoken word, we are talking about the written word. The native people who referred to themselves as the "Meshika" (that's an English-inspired gloss of the pronunciation that linguists generally believe is correct) did not write with the Latin alphabet, but they did say the word "Meshika", and it was not Spanish. The fact that Spanish Conquistadors decided to transcribe it with an X is frankly an odd choice and probably a bad choice, it may have been related to the local accent of whatever Spanish person decided to write it down.