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<html><head><title>Transcribing English in Verdurian</title></head>
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<center><h1><!--title-->Transcribing English in Verdurian
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<p>Posted by <b><!--poster-->Philip Newton</b>
on <!--date-->5:32 10/1/01
<p>In reply to: (none)
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<p>Is there a semi-standard for transliterating English with Verdurian
letters?</p>
<p>Here's a guess at one. The basis for the set of phonemes is a combination
of the Shavian alphabet and the description of JBR RP (Justin B Rye's
pronunciation) as described on <a
href="http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/phono.html">his page on a phonemic
transcription key</a>, from where I've also stolen the examples for each
sound.</p>
<p>The phonemes are written in ASCII IPA (letter case is significant here).
In the examples, the capital letter shows the sound that is being
described.</p>
<p>Note that JBR RP is non-rhotic while Shavian is rhotic (that is, 'r' is
marked in spelling in such things as 'far', which RP pronounces like 'fah').
I've taken the ASCII IPA from JBR's page, so it'll represent non-rhotic
pronunciation, but this doesn't make a difference except for /A:/, which can
be either <a> (e.g. <father>) or <ar> (e.g. <far>.),
/O:/, which can be either <aw>/<au> (e.g. <saw>) or
<or> (e.g. <sore>), and /@/, which can be either schwa/wedge
(e.g. <AbUndance>) or schwa + -r (e.g. <fathER>). These sounds
have split rows for the two representations.</p>
<p>I've included <r> in the Verdurian representation of sounds where
speakers of rhotic accents make a difference; a non-rhotic effect can
usually be attained by replacing the <r> with an <a>, e.g.
"beard" <bird> --> <biad>, or deleting it (for <ar> and
<or>) while possibly adding a long mark.</p>
<p>Also, /@/ in JBR RP stands for both unstressed shwa and a stressed vowel,
sometimes represented with IPA wedge (ASCII IPA /V/); Shavian distinguishes
between them, but since Verdurian can't, I've left them together. In
general, vowels are more problematic to transcribe since English's phonemic
vowel inventory is rather broad. (JBR RP also uses /@/ for the last syllable
of words such as <abundance>, <button>, <bottle>; many
accents speak those without a vowel, the <n> or <l> functions as
a vowel (like in Ismaîn!).)</p>
<table border="2">
<tr>
<th>Phoneme</th>
<th>Example</th>
<th>Verdurian</th>
</tr>
<tr><td>/b/</td><td>BuB</td><td>b</td></tr>
<tr><td>/d/</td><td>DuD</td><td>d</td></tr>
<tr><td>/dZ/</td><td>JuDGe</td><td>dzh</td></tr>
<tr><td>/g/</td><td>GaG</td><td>g</td></tr>
<tr><td>/p/</td><td>PuP</td><td>p</td></tr>
<tr><td>/t/</td><td>TuT</td><td>t</td></tr>
<tr><td>/tS/</td><td>CHurCH</td><td>ch</td></tr>
<tr><td>/k/</td><td>KiCK</td><td>k</td></tr>
<tr><td>/v/</td><td>VerVe</td><td>v</td></tr>
<tr><td>/D/</td><td>THiTHer</td><td>dh</td></tr>
<tr><td>/z/</td><td>ZooS</td><td>z</td></tr>
<tr><td>/Z/</td><td>viSIon</td><td>zh</td></tr>
<tr><td>/f/</td><td>FiFe</td><td>f</td></tr>
<tr><td>/T/</td><td>THinkeTH</td><td>dh [1]</td></tr>
<tr><td>/s/</td><td>SauCe</td><td>s</td></tr>
<tr><td>/S/</td><td>SHuSH</td><td>sh</td></tr>
<tr><td>/m/</td><td>MuM</td><td>m</td></tr>
<tr><td>/n/</td><td>NuN</td><td>n</td></tr>
<tr><td>/N/</td><td>haNGiNG</td><td>ng [2]</td></tr>
<tr><td>/l/</td><td>LuLL</td><td>l</td></tr>
<tr><td>/r/</td><td>Rah-Rah</td><td>r [3]</td></tr>
<tr><td>/w/</td><td>Wah-Wah</td><td>u [4]</td></tr>
<tr><td>/j/</td><td>Yo-Yo</td><td>y</td></tr>
<tr><td>/h/</td><td>Ha-Ha</td><td>rh [5]</td></tr>
<tr><td>/I/</td><td>bId</td><td>i</td></tr>
<tr><td>/E/</td><td>bEd</td><td>e</td></tr>
<tr><td rowspan="2">/@/</td><td>bUd, Abundance</td><td>a</td></tr>
<tr> <td>bettER, ARray</td><td>ar</td></tr>
<tr><td>/&/</td><td>bAd</td><td>a</td></tr>
<tr><td>/U/</td><td>bUddha</td><td>u</td></tr>
<tr><td>/A./</td><td>bOd</td><td>o</td></tr>
<tr><td>/I@/</td><td>bEARd</td><td>ir</td></tr>
<tr><td>/E@/</td><td>bAREd</td><td>er</td></tr>
<tr><td>/V":/</td><td>bIRd</td><td>ör [6]</td></tr>
<tr><td rowspan="2">/A:/</td><td>bARd</td><td>ar</td></tr>
<tr> <td>bAth</td><td>a, ä</td></tr>
<tr><td>/U@/</td><td>cUREd</td><td>ur</td></tr>
<tr><td rowspan="2">/O:/</td><td>bOARd</td><td>or</td></tr>
<tr> <td>sAW</td><td>o [7]</td></tr>
<tr><td>/i:/</td><td>bEAd</td><td>i [7]</td></tr>
<tr><td>/EI/</td><td>bAYEd</td><td>ey</td></tr>
<tr><td>/AI/</td><td>bIde</td><td>ay</td></tr>
<tr><td>/OI/</td><td>bUOYed</td><td>oy</td></tr>
<tr><td>/&U/</td><td>bOUGHed</td><td>au</td></tr>
<tr><td>/u:/</td><td>bOOed</td><td>u [7]</td></tr>
<tr><td>/@U/</td><td>bOde</td><td>ou</td></tr>
</table>
<p>Footnotes:</p>
<ol>
<li>This phoneme often turns into /t/ or /s/ when speakers of languages
lacking /T/ learn English. But I think that /D/ is closer.</li>
<li>There's a letter representing /N/ in Verdurian script, apparently
(Verdurian <img src="http://shavian.org/verdurian/letters/eng.png"
alt="ŋ/eng" height="16" width="8">, Maraille <img
src="http://shavian.org/verdurian/letters/big-eng.png" alt="Ŋ/ENG"
height="16" width="8">), but since it's not described on the page on
Verdurian phonology, it's probably better to transcribe this sound as
<ng> (just as the letter eng is not usually used in e.g. newspaper
transcription of other languages in English).</li>
<li>English <r> and Verdurian <r> do not sound the same, but
it's probably still the best correspondence.</li>
<li>Using <u> as a semi-vowel here. Maybe <w> (Verdurian <img
src="http://shavian.org/verdurian/letters/w.png" alt="w" height="16"
width="8">) or <ŭ> (u-breve; Verdurian <img
src="http://shavian.org/verdurian/letters/u-breve.png" alt="ŭ/u-breve"
height="16" width="8">) could also be used here.</li>
<li>This was the hardest for me to find a good letter for, since Verdurian
doesn't have this sound at all. I don't think using <h> (Verdurian
<img src="http://shavian.org/verdurian/letters/h.png" alt="h" height="16"
width="8">) is a good idea, since that letter is completely silent in modern
Verdurian. <h'> (Verdurian <img
src="http://shavian.org/verdurian/letters/h-acute.png" alt="h'" height="16"
width="8">), which represented /h/ in Cadhinor, dropped out on the way from
Cadhinor to Verdurian, so it's not that good, either. Using a representation
of /x/, as in (modern) Greek or Russian, doesn't work, since Verdurian
doesn't have such a sound (though Cadhinor did, and wrote it <img
src="http://shavian.org/verdurian/letters/kh.png" alt="kh" height="16"
width="8">). So <rh> seems the best approximation to English /h/.</li>
<li>I think this is the closest approximation to the sound of English
<ir>/<ur>/<er>.</li>
<li>I considered using a <strong>lenge cuzea</strong> on those letters to
show their phonetic (though not really phonemic) length in English -- that
is, <img src="http://shavian.org/verdurian/letters/o-long.png"
alt="ō/ò" height="16" width="8"> <img
src="http://shavian.org/verdurian/letters/i-long.png" alt="ī/ì"
height="16" width="8"> <img
src="http://shavian.org/verdurian/letters/u-long.png" alt="ū/ù"
height="16" width="8"> instead of <img
src="http://shavian.org/verdurian/letters/o.png" alt="o" height="16"
width="8"> <img src="http://shavian.org/verdurian/letters/i.png" alt="i"
height="16" width="8"> <img src="http://shavian.org/verdurian/letters/u.png"
alt="u" height="16" width="8">. However, I guess plain transcription would
probably not include it, though specialised scientific/linguistic material
might.</li>
</ol>
<p>Cheers,<br>Philip</p>
<hr><i>Mark responds:
<p>By the way, this is posting #200 to the VV Bulletin Board! And, if that weren't enough, the date, 10/1/01, is palindromic!
<p>RP??! Heh... well, I like Justin's pages, and there won't be that many
differences between his RP and my GA, especially when filtered through Verdurian's restricted vowel inventory.
<p>The /&/ vowel in 'bad' occurs in Flaidish (where it's written a or ai; Verdurians transcribe this as <b>eá</b> as in <b>fleád</b>) and in Barakhinei (<b>â</b>). For a more 'scholarly' transcription of English, you might look at the Barakhinei lax (circumflexed) vowels. Verdurian scholars use the same convention for studying dialects and foreign languages.
<p>The /I/ in 'bid' should be written <b>î</b> (or i-breve), no?
<p>English /k/ should be <b>c</b>, not <b>k</b>! The latter is a uvular stop, like Arabic or Cuzco Quechua <b>q</b>.
<p><b>J</b> is used in quite a few language of the Plain (Flaidish, Ismaîn, Caizu), so it'd probably be an acceptable alternative to <b>dzh</b>. (But it would be quite foreign-looking. If Jeerio the flaid came to Verduria,
he'd be well advised to write his name <b>Dzhirio</b>.) Similarly, the <b>th</b> letter is known from Cadhinor and Kebreni, and might be used in a scholarly transcription.
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