A phonetic writing writing system, is, unfortunately for English speaker, nothing like English. It is also, contrary to urban legend, very different from Spanish. The only language I can think of off hand that has a phonetic writing system is Korean: the Han'gul system.

In a phonetic system, all the recognized units of sound (English sound 'p', for example, is one that English speakers treat as a single sound, even though we technically have at least two different articulations for 'p') each have their own symbol, based on a symbol-building system, in which symbols are based on the articulatory "components" of the sound.

Typically, one part of the symbol represents what type of sound it is (fricative, vowel, plosive, etc.) while another part of the symbol notes where in the mouth the sound is produced (point of articulation).

The Huri writing system, which, like Greek, became the basis of writing systems for a number of later or unrelated writing systems, is phonetic. It also has a neat feature that I'm fairly certain is unique: diphthongs and consonant clusters are combined into single symbols.

In English, if you have a series of consonants (s-t-r or g-h-t, for example) they must be written as a series. In Huri such a series is written as a single unit.

This means that most words have only a few characters. On the other hand, it means there are lots of characters that you have to memorize. Fortunately, these characters are based on a system that actually makes sense, which helps your memory.

First, here is a basic breakdown of the Huri system.



Now, a breakdown of that image.

Sound Marker (SM): This line is the backbone of all the characters. Beyond that, it's pretty self explanatory, as you'll see.

Vowel Marker (VM): When placed with the SM, it indicates a vowel.

Long Vowel Marker (LVM:) When placed with the SM, it indicates a long vowel.

Nasal Marker (NM): When placed with the SM, it indicates a nasal consonant.

Fricative Marker (FM): When placed with the SM, it indicates a fricative consonant.

Aspirant Marker (AM): When placed with the SM, it indicates an aspirated plosive consonant.

Unaspirant Marker (UM): When placed with the SM, it indicates an unaspirated plosive consonant.

Ejective Marker (EM): When placed with SM, it indicates an ejective consonant.

The circle next to the SM under Positional Meanings shows you what the position of a marker indicates. For example, placing the vowel mark in the bottom left of the SM gives you a front-high vowel (e).

The actual symbols will help you see what's going on. For example, you will noticed that the LVM can be placed at different angles, or that the angles of the NM can change, based on position.

Next, I'll show you how to make diphthongs (a series of two vowels, pronounced together).



Here, you can see that you create diphthongs simply be combining the symbols of the two vowels you are putting together.

Note that there is an new symbol, shown in the center of the page.

Directionality Marker (DM): it helps us tell the difference between pairs, like OA and AO, which would like the same without the DM.

Short Diphthongs (SD): combinations of two short vowels.

Long Diphthongs (LD): combinations of two long vowels.

Semi-short Diphthongs (SSD): a short vowel followed by a long vowel.

Semi-long Diphthongs (SLD): a long vowel followed by a short vowel.

You can easily tell the difference between this groups: SD has only dots, LD has no dots, and in SSD and SLD the DM is always on the same side.

I will be editing this post to include and explain consonant clusters later, but I haven't finished that part yet.

*blinks* I took a long while to get this... but I finally got it! So all words have the line thing in them, or is there any other way to make up a word?

No, they all have the line thing!

Somebody got it!

Fascinating. It reminds me of a system Jay made several years ago. What sounds do the vowels in your key stand for? For instance, <a> stands for lots of sounds in English. What does it mean there?

I believe I am getting stuck on your division of vowels into long and short. I'm trying to understand what you mean. For instance, do you have coat in this language? Is that what you mean by a long vowel, a compound between a vowel and a half vowel?

Well, the each vowel represents three sounds, two of which generally aren't found in English. Unlike English, you can tell which way to pronounce the vowel generally by only the consonant in front of it, which is much simpler than English.

I wondered if anyone would get confused by long vs. short vowels. In English, we use long versus short to actually refer to two different articulations. In Huri, long vs. short is simply a distinction between the length of the production of the sound. Short vowels have about the same duration as in English, long vowels have a noticeably longer production time.

I don't have any compound vowels...a diphthong is a smooth transition where you slide from one vowel to the next. These generally only occur at the end of words in English.

In the American accent, for example, you will notice that the word two is pronounce "toow". That "w" sound at the end is the tongue and lips relaxing after the "oo" so that they are technically pronouncing a different vowel: the lax /uh/ sound. So you have a smooth transition between two vowel sounds.

In Huri, this occurs exclusively between consonants, where two vowels are present in one syllable. Rather than pronouncing these vowels separately (which would give you two syllables), they are pronounced as a diphthong, giving one syllable.

Diphthongs are not the same as, for example, the "oa" in "coat". Technically, in the American accent, "coat" is said as if it were spelled "cote", that is, the "a" does not effect the articulation. And in sounds such as "ea" where the "a" does change the "e", there is still only one vowel pronounced, not a smooth transition from "a" to "e".

The best example of a diphthong is a vowel followed by either "y" or "w". We consider these to be semi-vowels, but technically, when coupled with a vowel, they still form diphthongs. That is because, when following a tense vowel (vowels in English make a tense vs. lax distinction), as the tongue or lips relax, they move to a more open position. That motion produces the "w" and "y" sounds, but during the production, you are still voicing, so the changing shape of your mouth become a series of at least two vowel sounds.

I know, diphthongs are very confusing, so just think about, for example, moving from "ee" to "oh". If you do it correctly, that should sound like "eeyoh" (although the /y/ should be very indistinct).

All of this, and the consonants, will be explained in my section on actually speaking Huri. The writing system is being posted separately because I'll be using a romanization that everyone can actually read in the section on Huri grammar.

Oh, that is interesting. I like that.

Actually I wasn't confused because I was thinking you meant it in the English way, because I didn't know that it meant that in English til you told me. I've done no real training in phonetics, I experiment on my own and so I don't know any of the terminology, except what Patrick scrounges off the internet. I was confused because I simply didn't know what you meant; you didn't give a definition of the terms. * laughs *

Yes, I've experimented with this a lot, so I know what you're talking about, though I was not aware of the terminology for it, again. I didn't know that that is what a dipthong is. I call it a compound vowel in my own personal terminology that I talk to myself and make notes in.

When I used 'coat' for the example I was not referring to the actual letters but the sound you pronounce it with -- sorry for not making that a bit more clear. 'Cote' would have been a better example. What I was trying to say was that the <o> in 'cote' and is a compound, or a dipthong I think you would call it, beginning with the cup sound and ending with a very short (which is why I called it semi) mood (or 'w') sound. Though sometimes when you pronounce it you skip the transition and just make the whole vowel as somewhere in between those two sounds.

Great! I'll look forward to it.

What are the vertical lines that make sideways 'Ts' in the vowel part of the diphthong page? You probably explain it somewhere in the two pages, but I can't figure out where

Oh, yes, those are the directionality markers. With out them, pairs like oa-ao would generally look the same, which would be a big problem (for me).



I do to! (That's actually the reason I did it, ironically.) Although, it still operates on the tense-lax distinction from English. Once I finally wrapped my head around tense vs. lax, I realized it's actually a lot more straight forward than vowel systems like Spanish.



Yeah, I think I'm at the point where I've been using long and short so long that I just assume everyone know what I mean because I know what I mean.



I understand what you are saying now! That makes sense.

Glad you're looking forward to it. But first I've got to put up my incredibly long list of consonant cluster symbols.

Ok. And are ones without directionality markers words that can go either way? And does the fact that 'a's are always on none side and 'o's on the other side mean you can't have any words like 'were' (because it has two of the same vowel with a consonant between them), or...

Then again, I don't know how consonants work, so maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself

OK, there's a lot that I didn't make clear, I guess.

The ones without directionality markers can only go one way. They don't have a directionality marker because the other member of their pair is clearly different without the directionality marker.

I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at..."a"s and "o"s can be on either side of each other. OA or AO. Or OU or UO. Etc. As for "were", while it techincally does have two vowels, you notice that the second "e" is silent. In English, a silent "e" is added to change the pronounciation of the previous vowel, generaly with a consonant in between. In Huri, there are other ways of indicating how to pronounce the vowel, so you don't need to add a silent "e".

I'll be talking about the rules for syllable construction in another topic, but basically, you can't end or begin a syllable with a vowel. You have to bookend all vowels with consonants. So that final "e" in "were" is against the rules.

The name "Huri" appears to break the rule, but as I'll explain in more detail elsewhere, "Huri" is not actually a Huri word...the name is derived from another language entirely.

Ok; I see

I kind of understand.
What does 'tense vs. lax' mean?
Also, when you write a word, is the Sound Marker connected throughout the word, and seperated to mark the end of a word, or is it seperate for every letter?

In the English vowel system, there is a distinction between "tense" and "lax" vowels. Tense vowels are the cardinal vowels that you usually think of as vowels. Lax vowels are intermediate sounds between other vowels.

Huri also uses the tense/lax distinction, but more systematically.

However, you do not need to understand how to pronounce Huri to understand the Huri writing system.

The sound marker is separate for every letter. This is because making it continue between letters would be complicated (in some of the complex combinations of consonants some symbols bend at angles) and I am to lazy to figure out how it would work. I'm only willing to go so far with complicated systems.

As a child, I always wanted to rewrite the alphabet so that each character had only one assigned sound (also, C,K,Q... ). Although, I was more in favor of having each sound broken down rather than added. That's a neat feature though.

As it turns out, breaking down sounds is part of what causes reading disorders, at least according to a series of studies done in Great Britain (nobody wants to pay for similar studies in the US...I guess English in a lower priority here).

I always wanted to each character to have a set value, just like you. In this system I compromise: each character represents a sound consistently. Some of them can represent multiple sounds, but the rules are very simple and they never have exceptions.

The system seems complex, but it is consistent and has no exceptions. It also has a nice aesthetic, and rendering any syllable in only three characters is nice.