Rhaetian - Orthography and Pronunciation

The Rhaetian alphabet consists of the same 24 letters as the Greek, in uppercase and lowercase forms: Αα Ββ Γγ Δδ Εε Ζζ Ηη Θθ Ιι Κκ Λλ Μμ Νν Ξξ Οο Ππ Ρρ Σσς Ττ Υυ Φφ Χχ Ψψ Ωω.

(As in Greek, the form ς is used at the ends of words, and σ is used elsewhere.)

The names of the letters are: αλφα βητα γαμμα δελτα εψιλον ζητα ητα θητα ιωτα καππα λαμδα μυ νυ ξι ομικρον πι ρω σιγμα ταυ υψιλον φι χι ψι ωμεγα.

Note: I'm considering adding letters for the sounds [v] and/or [j]. However, the issue is a bit academic at the moment since my GMP doesn't produce either sound yet.

For [v], I'm rather partial to the digamma (Ϝ ϝ), since that fits the sound value; also, keeping it would make the use of letters as numbers a bit more nifty, since I could use digamma for 6. On the other hand, font support for digamma appears to be rather spotty, especially for the cased version (not that surprising, considering that Unicode only fairly recently introduced a specifically lowercase version, implicitly treating "GREEK LETTER DIGAMMA" as uppercase). Unfortunately, GREEK LETTER YOT (ϳ) is caseless/lowercase-only.

Other potential candidates for those sounds are variations of upsilon and iota, respectively.

In my personal notes (when I write German in Rhaetian orthography), I use digamma for /v/ and plain iota for /j/, leaving context to distinguish between /j/ and /i/. Though I suppose I could also go the Latin route and use upsilon for /v/; after all, they used not only I but also V for both consonant and vowel (/j/,/i/ and /v/,/u/ respectively, I believe -- or was consonantal V /w/? That's not the sound I want to represent.).

Diacritics

Δασειε (Rough breathing) and Ψιλε (Smooth breathing)

The smooth breathing mark will not be used. Words starting with a vowel will simply start with a vowel letter.

The rough breathing mark of Ancient Greek has been retained in semantics (to represent a word or syllable starting with a /h/ sound), but its shape has changed to a simple stroke, and it is represented in computers with the modern Greek "tonos". Exceptions are when the circumflex is used (e.g. in dictionaries) to mark a long vowel, in which case the traditional reversed-comma shape is used, and in computers the "rough breathing" is used in those cases.

For diphthongs as well as single vowel sounds represented by two vowel letters (digraphs), the breathing is placed over the second vowel letter. Also, the mark is placed over lower-case letters but before upper-case letters.

The possible vowels and digraphs that can take the rough breathing are as follows: ά ἇ έ ή ί ἷ ό ύ ὗ ώ αί αἷ αΐ αύ αίυ εί εΐ εύ οί ού υί υἷ ωί ha ha he he hi hi ho hu hu ho hä hä hai hau häu hie hei heu hö hu hü hü hö

Περισπωμενε (Circumflex)

The circumflex accent (˜) is optionally used to mark long vowels. (Note that so-called "long" vowels nearly always differ not only in quantity but also in quality from their so-called "short" counterparts.)

It can appear above the vollowing vowel letters and digraphs: ᾶ ἇ ῖ ἷ ῦ ὗ αῖ αἷ υῖ υἷ.

Note: Both the "tilde" shape and the "inverted breve" shape are acceptable glyph variants for the circumflex accent.

Οξειε (Acute)

The acute accent will probably not be used, at least, not to mark stress. The (often) similarly-shaped tonos (q.v.) is instead used to mark aspiration.

Βαρειε (Grave)

Ύπογεγραμμενε (Iota subscript)

(It was used in an earlier version of the orthography in the combinations ᾳυ ᾳὑ äu häu, to avoid the trigraph αιυ, but I decided to get rid of it since it was becoming the only non-ISO-8859-7 character in the orthography.)

Pronunciation

Phones and phonemes

Vowels

Rhaetian has the following 15 vowel phonemes: /iː yː ɪ ʏ eː øː ɛː ɛ œ aː a uː ʊ oː ɔ/. In addition, there are two additional frequent phones: [ɐ ə]; those two sounds are allophones of unstressed /ɛr/ and /ɛ/, respectively.

Sound	iː	yː	ɪ	ʏ	eː	øː	ɛː	ɛ	œ	aː	a	uː	ʊ	oː	ɔ
Spelling	ι, ει	υι	ι	υι	η	ωι	αι	ε, αι	οι	α	α	υ	υ	ω	ο

Diphthongs

Rhaetian has four "proper" diphthongs and 19 "centering" diphthongs and triphthongs.

The proper diphthongs are: /ae ɛɪ ɔʏ ao/. The centering diphthongs are allophones of a (long or short) vowel or a diphthong plus /r/, which is realised as [ɐ]; they are [iːɐ yːɐ ɪɐ ʏɐ eːɐ øːɐ ɛːɐ ɛɐ œɐ aːɐ aɐ uːɐ ʊɐ oːɐ ɔɐ aeɐ ɛɪɐ ɔʏɐ aoɐ].

Sound	ae	ɛɪ	ɔʏ	ao
Spelling	αϊ, εϊ	ηι	ευ, αιυ	αυ

Consonants

Rhaetian has the following 17 consonant phonemes: /p b t d k ɡ m n ŋ r f s z ʃ x h l/.

I'm not yet sure what to do with /v ʒ j/.

Note that the phoneme /r/ is usually realised as a voiced uvular fricative [ʁ], but it can also be a uvular or alveolar trill [ʀ r]. The phoneme /x/ is usually realised as a voiceless velar or uvular fricative: [x χ] (but not as a voiceless palatal fricative [ç]!).

Letter	Value	Example	Pronunciation
α	[a]	αλλε	[alə]
α (ᾶ)	[aː]	άλε, ἇλε	[haːlə]
αι	[ɛ]	αιλλε	[ɛlə]
αι (αῖ)	[ɛː], [e:]	αίλε, αἷλε	[hɛːlə], [he:lə]
αϊ	[ae]	δαϊς	[daes]
αυ	[ao]	σταυρες	[ʃtaoʁəs]
αιυ	[ɔʏ]	σταιυρο	[ʃtɔʏʁo]
β	[b]	βαϊνο	[baeno]
γ	[ɡ]	γωρο	[ɡoːʁo]
γ	[ŋ]	βαλαγκε	[baːlaŋkə]
δ	[d]	δω	[doː]
ε	[ɛ]	έννυ	[hɛnu]
ε	[ə]	αΐτεγε	[haetəgə]
ει	[eː]
ει	[iː]
εϊ	[ae]
ευ	[ɔʏ]	τθευδερερ	[tsɔʏdɐʁɐ]
ερ	[ɐ]	λυιερ	[lyːɐ]
ζ	[z]
η	[eː]	φηφτε	[feːftə]
θ	[s]	αθθελβες	[asəlbəs]
ι	[ɪ]	ιγτυις	[ɪktʏs]
ι (ῖ)	[iː]
κ	[kʰ]
κχ	[kχ]
λ	[l]	λωιο	[løːo]
μ	[m]	μην	[meːn]
ν	[n]	ναυς	[naos]
ξ	[ks]
ο	[ɔ]	χλοσσε	[χlɔsə], [kχlɔsə]
οι	[œ]	χλοισσε	[χlœsə], [kχlœsə]
ου	[uː]
π	[pʰ]
πφ	[pf]	πφαρρος	[pfaʁɔs]
ρ	[ʁ]	αρετμες	[aːɐʁətməs]
ρ	[ɐ]	ίφφοιρ ίφφυρ μαγαιρ μαγορ φερριφλαυρ φερριφλωιρ	[hɪfœɐ] [hɪfʊɐ] [maːɡaeɐ] [maːɡɔɐ] [fɛʁiflaoɐ] [fɛʁifløːɐ]
σ	[s]	δοις	[dœs]
	[z]	συι	[zyː]
	[ʃ]
σκ	[ʃ]	Σκηραββαιρον	[ʃeːʁabɛʁɔn]
σπ	[ʃp]	σπηλαϊεν	[ʃpeːlaeən]
στ	[ʃt]	Γρεστες	[ɡʁɛʃtəs]
σσ	[s]	δεσσαρερ	[dɛsaʁɐ]
τ	[tʰ]	τηες	[tʰeːəs]
τθ	[ts]	τθωρεν	[tsoːʁən]
υ	[ʊ]
υ (ῦ)	[uː]
υι	[ʏ]	χυιφς	[χʏfs], [kχʏfs]
υι (υῖ)	[yː]	χυιβε	[χyːbə], [kχyːbə]
φ	[f]	φυς	[fuːs]
χ	[χ]	τοιχχαδερ	[tʰœχadɐ]
χ	[χ], [kχ]	Χυιρε	[χyːʁə], [kχyːʁə]
χσ	[ks]	έχς	[hɛks]
ψ	[ps]
ω	[oː]	φρωδερ	[froːdɐ]
ωι	[øː]	τθωιε	[tsøːə]

Orthography and Pronunciation

Alphabet

Letters