Difference between revisions of "Document:Novic Orthography"

Latest revision as of 22:08, 25 August 2011

While Novmir uses the English language, it writes it using a system based on the Cyrillic rather than the Latin alphabet. Such writing can be seen in places such as official government documents and the royal coat of arms. Like the Latin English alphabet, this spelling system is based on the pronunciation of the earlier rather than modern English language. As such the values of some letters differ significantly from their usual values in the Cyrillic alphabet. However, this also means that more words can be converted from Latin to Cyrillic one-to-one. Novmir also uses different punctuation in some cases as well. This document is intended to give the reader a basic familiarity with the Novic writing system.

Letters

The Novic alphabet contains thirty-four individual letters. Like the Latin alphabet, some letters may have different pronunciations in different contexts. What these contexts are and how they affect pronunciation are discussed in greater detail in the following sections.

The Novic alphabet is given in its entirety in the following chart. The names of letters are given using phonetic spelling according to general English spelling conventions. The Latin column gives the letter's Latin equivalents. If a Latin equivalent contains more than one letter, the Cyrillic letter only replaces them when they are pronounced as a single sound. Instances of equivalence which depend on context are covered in greater detail under the section on converting from Latin to Cyrillic. This chart is not intended to be comprehensive, and exceptions exist.

Digraphs

In some cases a pair of letters represent a single sound. All of these digraphs have an equivalent in the Latin system of spelling. However, not all Latin digraphs have a Cyrillic equivalent and are written using a single letter instead. These letters and what digraphs they replace are discussed in the previous section. Which Cyrillic digraph is appropriate is in some cases dependent on context. This complication is addressed in the section on converting from Latin to Cyrillic. This chart is not necessarily exhaustive, and exceptions may exist.

Long and Short Vowels

Just as in the Latin system of writing, most vowels have both a long and short pronunciation. The Cyrillic system uses doubled letters to indicate a long vowel. Silent E's are not used, and should always be dropped when converting to Cyrillic (e.g. <bane> → <баан>). The long and short values of some vowels are different from what they are in the Latin system. These differences are addressed in the following section.

Converting from Latin to Cyrillic

The following chart is intended to provide a convenient reference for turning English written in the Latin alphabet into Cyrillic. In the context column gives the conditions under which a certain Latin to Cyrillic conversion is appropriate. Letters in slashes represent a certain pronunciation of the Latin letters. An underscore represent the letters in some context. A capital C in these cases represents a consonant, a pound sign represents a word boundary and S a short vowel. The null sign <Ø> indicates that a letter is not pronounced or should be replaced by nothing in Cyrillic. Any empty entry indicates all or all other contexts. These rules in most cases only hold when the Latin letters are pronounced as a single sound. This chart does not necessarily capture all subtleties of the differences between the Latin and Cyrillic systems, and exceptions exist. Relatively recent foreign loanwords, words whose spelling does not reflect historical pronunciations but arbitrary conventions and the frequently abbreviated function words pose problems in particular.

Contractions

Contractions in the Novic system are not written as part of the preceding word using an apostrophe. Instead they are written as a single letter separated by a space from the preceding word (e.g. <it's> → <ит з>, not *<ит'з>). All contractions found in the Latin system may be used in the Cyrillic system, except for <n't>. This is considered an inflection and is written as part of the preceding word without an apostrophe (e.g. <isn't> → <изнт>, not *<изн'т> or *<из нт>).

The Novic system also uses single letter contractions for several words for which the Latin system has no contractions. These words are <the>, <and>, <or>, <to> and <of>. These can be written simply as <ѳ> (e.g. <the end> → <ѳ енд>), <н> (e.g. <up and down> → <упп н дун>), <р> (e.g. <left or right> → <лефт р рихт>), <т> (e.g. <to be> → <т бе>) and <в> (e.g. <loaf of bread> → <лåф в брӕд>) respectively. Just as with other contractions, it is inappropriate to use these when the words are pronounced in full for emphasis or appear on their own.

The rules applying to contractions also apply to the possessive clitic <'s>. The apostrophe is not used, and it is always written as <з> and as a separate word (e.g. <man's> → <манн з>).

Unlike when writing in Latin, it is not considered inappropriate by Novic conventions to use contractions in formal writing. As demonstrated by the sample text their use is very common, and not using them when there is no need for emphasis may come across as odd and stilted.

Suffixes

The grammatical suffixes for the plural, third person singular and the past tense differ in their spelling in the Novic system. The plural and third person suffixes are written as <з> (e.g. <cows> → <куз>), or <ез> when it follows <с>, <з>, <ш>, <ч> and <ж> (e.g. <passes> → <пассез>). The past tense suffix meanwhile is only written as <ед> following <т> or <д> (e.g. <mended> → <мендед>). Otherwise it is written simply as <д> (e.g. <killed> → <киллд>). As with the Latin system, the allophonic devoicing of these suffixes is not represented in writing. The plural and third person singular are always written with <з>, even if pronounced /s/ (e.g. <cats> → <каттз>), and the past always written with <д>, even if pronounced /t/ (e.g. <missed> → <миссд>).

Punctuation

The differences between Novic and typical English punctuation are very minor. The period, comma, question mark and exclamation point are all used as they normally are. Novic writing supplements this set of marks with the interrobang (<‽>). Unlike in normal English writing, the interrobang is standard in Novic and is used instead of <?!> or <!?> (e.g. <What?!> → <Һўат‽>), both of which are unacceptable in Novic. The other important difference is that in place of quotation marks, single or double, guillemets (<«> and <»>)are used instead (e.g. <"Hello"> → <«Һеллå»>). Guillemets should face away from the quoted text, never in towards it.

Capitalization

The standards for capitalization are nearly identical to those used in the Latin orthography. The one important exception is that the personal pronoun "I" is not capitalized when it does not begin a sentence (e.g. <"I think I can"> → <И ѳинк и канн>, not *<И ѳинк И канн>).

Compound words

In conventional English orthography, terms derived from multiple words are often written as separate words, even if they in fact function as a single one (e.g. <high school>). In Novic orthography such terms are typically written using single, compound words (e.g. <high school> → <һихсхол>). While the two word phrase <һих схол> might also be used in Novic writing, it would refer to a school which is actually high in some sense, rather than an institute for secondary education.

Sample