I will use diacritics in this new orthography in order to eliminate some ugly letter combinations. One must not think of these as letters with fancy symbols on the top, but seperate letters themselves. I will explain more when appropriate.
All letters will be presented in the following format:
Letter (Capital, lowercase)---Pronunciation---English Word---Þeodisch Word
Vowels:
Let's start with the vowels: Vowel length is where most people get caught up in diacritics, however, in order to eliminate this, I am drawing inspiration from the Dutch, who seem to have no problem with double letters (or quadruple...but I will avoid those at all costs).
Double letters will always mark long vowels. Single letters may mark both long and short vowel sounds, but depend on consonants as well. In one syllable words with a long vowel, only one letter is used. In multisyllable words where a double vowel would seem inappropriate or look awkward, consonant length will determine whether a vowel is long or short. Again, this is a convention taken from Dutch. Double consonants will always make the preceeding vowel short.
Aa- 'ah' as in father, respelled faðer, when long
Ee- 'ay' as bake, respelled beek, when long; 'eh' as in beckon, respelled bekkin, when short
Ii- 'ee' as in heated, respelled hiitid or hietid*, when long; 'ih' as in little, respelled littil, when short
Oo- 'oh' as in boat, respelled boot
Uu- 'oo' as in boot, respelled buut, when long; 'uh' as in cut, respelled kutt, when short
Ææ- the vowel sound in cat, respelled kæt
Note- this letter may never be doubled (this is an asthetic choice of mine)
Åå- the vowel sound in gone and law, respelled gån and låw respectively
Note- this letter may never be doubled
Yy- 'ai' as in time, respelled tym or tijm**, also pronounced as short 'i' when used as the archaic perfective prefix y- (a Middle English development of the OE ge- prefix, meaning 'with, together' or the standard prefix attached to perfective participles. This survives in German and Dutch verb forms, which both use helping verb (to have or to be) ge+verb+ending.)
*For asthetic pleasure, this long vowel sound may be represented by the following letter combination: Double 'i'- ie (hiitid becomes hietid). However, when a long 'i' is in final position, ie must always be used.
**The letter 'y' (pronounced 'eye', not 'why') can be rewritten as ij. This is the Dutch convention but was also employed in the Middle English period to represent a long 'i' sound, which through the Great Vowel Shift became the 'ai' sound
Consonants:
Bb- 'buh' as in boy, respelled boi
Cc- 'chuh' as in church, respelled circ
Note- this letter is never pronounced as in Modern English. It is only representative of the 'ch' sound.
Dd- 'duh' as in day, respelled dee
Ff- 'fuh' as in fan, respelled fæn
Gg- 'guh' as in gone, respelled gån
Hh- 'huh' as in happy, respelled hæppie; also silent in words which historically held an IPA /x/ sound, in Modern English, usually spelled with a 'gh' such as light, might, and right, all respelled lyht, myht, and ryht, respectively.
Jj- 'yuh' as in young, respelled jung
Kk- 'kuh' as in cow, respelled kauw
Ll- 'luh' as in laugh, respelled læhf
Mm- 'muh' as in make, respelled meek
Nn- 'nuh' as in never, respelled nevur
Pp- 'puh' as in pig, respelled pig
Qq- this letter has been eliminated and all instances replaced by k or kw
Rr- 'ahr' as in run, respelled run
Ss- 'ess' as in say, respelled see; 'zee' as in things, respelled þings; when doubled, this letter is always pronounced 'ess'
Tt- 'tuh' as in tiny, respelled tynie
Vv- 'vuh' as in vear, respelled veer
Ww- 'wuh' as in weather, respelled weður
Xx- this letter has been eliminated and all instances replaced with ks
Zz- this letter is used in loanwords only, pronounced as in Modern English
Important letter combinations:
Sounds not represented by single letters are represented by digraphs, trigraphs, or diphthongs.
Because of the importance of these, the format is slightly different from the above examples in order to explain each choice appropriately.
'th' as in then- This phoneme will be represented by the single letter Ðð, which is called 'eth.' This letter only makes the 'th' sound like that in the words then, this, etc. This letter may not be doubled.
'th' as in thing- This phoneme will be represented by the letter Þþ, which is called 'thorn.' This letter only makes the 'th' sound like that in the words thing, thank, etc. This letter may not be doubled.
'sh' as in ship- This phoneme will be represented with the trigraph, sch. This trigraph was prevelent in the Middle English period for the same sound, which is an improvement over the Old English equivilent, sc. 'Sch' was most likely adopted because of increased international trade and the power of the Hanseatic league in the Mediteranian during the Middle English period. Note- this trigraph is never pronounced as in Modern English school.
'g' as in gym, 'j' as in jungle- These letters will both be represented with the digraph cg. This is a spelling convention taken directly from the Old English period, and thus looks alien. This is the oldest way of writing this sound using Germanic principles rather than the French orthography adopted in the Middle English period.
'ou' as in house- This digraph is replaced by au in all instances where it makes the sound in house.
'oy' as in boy- This digraph is replaced by oi in all instances.
Some Important Aspects to Spelling
Due to the archaic nature of the spelling of þeodisch, many words will come to look unfamiliar. In addition to these changes, however, are various respellings of already phonetic words in order to bring them back to their original, historic spelling.
The main spellings this will effect are words begining with 'wh,' such as 'when,' 'what,' 'who,' and so on. These initial 'wh' spellings will be switched back to their Old English format of 'hw.' Pronunciation, however, will remain the same, with the 'h' being silent.
Some words retain letters even if they do not phonetically indicate the spellings. This has already been explained with the silent 'h' attached to words that, in English's past, had the IPA /x/ sound, usually represented by 'gh,' a Dutch convention. (light, fight, might, though, etc.)
In addition to the silent 'h,' the silent 'w' is often attached to the end of a word in order to "complete" the word. The 'w' is retained in words where it has historically been held. Even though it is unpronounced, or at best only vaugly pronounced, it is retained in order to make the word look normal. This is a purely personal, asthetic choice of mine, in addition to being historically accurate.
'N,' before 'g' is always pronounced as in sing. Should the 'g' need to be pronounced as well, the 'g' must be doubled.
No comments:
Post a Comment