History: Verdurian orthography

Source of version: 2 (current)

((Verdurian)) is at [http://www.zompist.com/verdurian.htm]; it's a ((Mark Rosenfelder)) language, and a conlang to which ((pne|I)) am rather partial.

Its [http://www.zompist.com/phonology.htm#alphabet|alphabet] maps fairly well to Lojban, and since it has upper and lower case as well, this can map onto the standard Romanisation.

I would use something like the following correspondence. The following table is <Lojban letter> - <Name of Verdurian letter> - <standard transliteration>.

[http://www.zompist.com/znak1.gif]
[http://www.zompist.com/znak2.gif]

* ' - odh - h' <Note 1>
* a - a - a
* b - be - b
* c - shen - sh
* d - dah - d
* e - ë - e
* f - fai - f
* g - gëf - g
* i - i - i
* j - ezh - zh
* k - cës - c <Note 2>
* l - la - l
* m - me - m
* n - ne - n
* o - o - o
* p - pe - p
* r - ra - r
* s - sas - s
* t - toh - t
* u - ü - u
* v - voi - v
* x - kodh - h <Note 3>
* y - i brevë - y <Note 4>
* z - zais - z

Notes:
# This is a Cadhinor letter which dropped out of use during the evolution of Verdurian. It's usually transliterated ''h'' when writing Cadhinor and ''h'____'' when writing Verdurian, to distinguish it from the letter kodh, which is usually transliterated ''h'' in Verdurian. Using this letter means that the apostrophe becomes much more marked visually in Verdurian than in Roman or Cyrillic orthography, but that is not really to be helped, since there isn't any other good equivalent for apostrophe that I can see. See also <Note 3> and <Note 5>.
# For this sound, there is the option of using ''cës'' (transliterated ''c'') and ''ek'' (transliterated ''k''). However, ''cës'' is a better fit since it is pronounced [[k] in Verdurian, while ''ek'' is [[q]. (It also matches better since it is the unvoiced form of ''gëf'', as can be seen when comparing the letter shapes in the native alphabet.)
# This letter was pronounced [[x] (that is, much like Lojban <x>) in Cadhinor, though the pronunciation became [[h] in Old Verdurian, and the letter is now completely silent. See also <Note 5>.
# This letter is a consonant/semivowel in Verdurian; however, it is used as a vowel in other languages using the same alphabet, such as Ismaîn and Kebreni, which is precedent enough for me to press it into service as transliteration of Lojban <y>.
# For ''____'____'' and ''x'', I use the Cadhinor sound values. For ''y'', I simply use the fact that the transliteration is the same. For the other letters,  the Verdurian sound value matches the Lojban sound value (or falls within the permissible range of sound values for letters such as <e> or <r>).
# For '','' and ''.'', I would use the Verdurian comma (''keshash'') and full stop (''bolyáshe keshash''), respectively (which look like a hyphen and an equals sign). See the image below.
[http://www.zompist.com/znak3.gif]
History: Verdurian orthography

Source of version: 2 (current)

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