Proto-Galach Transcription

[SandChigger]

This is a (preliminary) transcription system for Proto-Galach using only the Roman alphabet with no diacritics. (As noted elsewhere, using the IPA would make more sense, but everyone’s not familiar with it and this boardware sometimes does funny things to Unicode.) I think this should be adequate (albeit not perfect) for handling both English and Russian, so please use it for all examples written in the new language. NOTE that I am NOT suggesting that this would be the actual orthography in which people would write, only that this is what we use for transcription in the conlang project. The actual orthography would no doubt be very complex and not something we should worry with just yet.

Please point out anything that I have overlooked in this thread, and also feel free to practice using the transcription here.

PROTO-GALACH TRANSCRIPTION

(Doubled vowels do not necessary indicate length.)

A - as in sofa; schwa, the neutral vowel
AA - as a in father (or use AH for this?)
AE - as a in Am. bat
AI/AY - as i in tight, site
AO/AU/AW - as ou in about
B - as in bet
C - UNUSED (use K)
CH - as in church (= TSH; Russ. che)
D - as in dog
DH - as th in this, mother, bathe
E - as in bet (=Russ. e oborotnoye)
EI/EY - as ey in they, ay in say
F - as in fat
G - as in get; hard g (g in George always J)
GH - UNUSED
H - as in hot
HW - as wh in some speakers pronunciation of white, whale
I - as in hit
IH - (=yeri) Russian mih
II/IY - as ee in beet, ea in heat
J - as in jump (= DZH)
K - as in king
KH - as ch in Scottish loch, German Bach (=Russ. kha)
KW - as qu in queen
L - as in like (light L)
LL - as in hall (dark L)
M - as in me
N - as in no
NG - as in singer (NGG as in finger)
O - as in roll
OW - as o in hope, no
OY - as in boy
P - as in pet
PH - UNUSED (use F)
QU - UNUSED (use KW)
R - as in red
S - as in hiss, so (never as in is; use Z)
SH - as in ship (=Russ. sha)
SHCH - as in fresh cheese, Russ. borshch
T - as in tick
TH - as in think, with
TS - as in tsunami, Russian tsar (=Russ. tse)
U - as in put, oo in book
UI/UY - as uoy in buoy for some speakers? (Better buwiy or buuiy?)
UR - as ir in bird, er in perfect
UU/UW - as u in rude, ough in through
V - as in vat
W - as in wink
X - UNUSED (use KS or GZ)
Y - as in young (always a consonant; use for Russ. i kratkoye)
Z - as in zoo
ZH - as in azure, s in measure, g in triage (=Russ. zhe)

Dhis iz Maadurn Iynglish ritan in dhiy abav orthaagrafiy. Aa eta pa-Ruuskiy.

[SandChigger]

It teyks a lital [litl] getiyng yuwzt tuw, bat izant [iznt] dhaet haard with a lital praektis. Yuw mey naat baliyv it, bat dhis mayt meyk it iyziyar tuw murj [murdzh] dha Iynglish aend Rashan.

"Chaanchow...samtaymz wen yuw aar a maen...yuw wer strechiy paents...in yor ruwm...alown."

[SandChigger]

English spelling reforms never get very far because, despite its many shortcomings and difficulties, our current system—which reflects phonemics more than phonetics and maintains morphemic unity across words—actually helps to foster (written) communication across the vast areas where the language is used. 8)