International Hesperic Alphabet

The International Hesperic Alphabet (IHA) is a standard for phonemic transcription of Hesperic languages. The IHA is not meant as an alternative to the International Phonetic Alphabet and not to be used as such, but as a repository of symbols from which to build phonemic transcriptions of individual Hesperic languages that are compatible to each other.

Origin (extrafictional)

The IHA was designed by Jörg Rhiemeier in 2019 (version 1) and 2020 (version 2) and is an updated and extended version of his early universal transcription system.

Origin (intrafictional)

The IHA was agreed upon by scholars studying Hesperic languages in 1988. In order to be usable on the time's computers and bulletin box system networks which did not deal with non-ASCII characters well, it was designed to use ASCII characters only, resorting to digraphs and to the usage of interpunction characters as postposed (or, in some cases, prepopsed) diacritics. In 2007, this was revised, replacing most of those marks by "real" diacritics above or below the letters.

Version 1

The rules

1. The 26 basic letters have their IPA values, except c which has the same value as k. (This is a concession to different traditions. The Albic languages use c exclusively while the Hercynian and Alpianic languages use k; the South Hesperic languages use k before front vowels and c otherwise.)
2. Affricates are written as stop+fricative, e.g. ts, dzh.
3. The letter h is also used to form digraphs, with the following values: a) after a stop, the corresponding fricative (e.g., dh = /ð/); b) after a sibilant, postalveolar articulation (e.g., sh = /ʃ/); c) after a sonorant, voicelessness (e.g., lh = /ɬ/).
4. The apostrophe (') marks aspiration (after the letter, postaspiration; before the letter, preaspiration).
5. The chevron (^) after a letter marks palatalization. It is also used for fronting vowels (e.g. o^ = /ø/).
6. The asterisk (*) after a letter marks labialization.
7. The tilde (~) after a letter marks nasalization.
8. The backquote (`) after a letter shifts the point of articulation backwards: after an alveolar, it marks retroflexion (e.g., s` = /ʂ/); after a velar, it marks uvular articulation (e.g., g` = /ɢ/). It is also used for backing vowels (e.g., i` = /ɨ/).
9. The semicolon (;) before a vowel letter lowers the vowel (;o = /ɒ/), before r it marks a uvular rhotic where needed (;r = /ʀ/), and before l it marks a velarized lateral (;l = /ɫ/, the "dark l" of English).
10. The period (.) can be used to break up letter sequences in order to suppress digraphs where needed (e.g., s.h = /sh/ instead of sh = /ʃ/).
11. Long vowels are spelled double.
12. Accent, where distinctive, is marked by a comma (,) before the syllable.

Charts

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Stops	voiceless	p	t			t`	k^	k	k`
	voiced	b	d			d`	g^	g	g`
	aspirated	p'	t'			t`'	k^'	k'	k`'
Fricatives	voiceless	f	th	s	sh	s`	k^h	kh	k`h	h
	voiced	v	dh	z	zh	z`	g^h	gh	g`h
Nasals	voiced	m	n			n`	ng^	ng	ng`
	voiceless	mh	nh			n`h	ng^h	ngh	ng`h
Laterals	voiced		l			l`	l^	;l
	voiceless		lh			l`h	l^h	;lh
Rhotics	voiced		r			r`	r^		;r
	voiceless		rh			r`h	r^h		;rh
Semivowels	voiced	w					j
	voiceless	wh					jh

Vowels

	Front		Non-front
	Unround	Round	Unround	Round
Close	i	y/u^	i`	u
Mid	e	o^	e`	o
Open	a^	;o^	a	;o

Version 2

The rules

1. The 26 basic letters have their IPA values, except c which has the same value as k. (This is a concession to different traditions. The Albic languages use c exclusively while the Hercynian and Alpianic languages use k; the South Hesperic languages use k before front vowels and c otherwise.) The special letters æ, ø and ł are also used with their IPA values. Also, the symbol 3 is used for a laryngeal approximant.
2. Affricates are written as stop+fricative, e.g. ts, dž.
3. The apostrophe (') marks aspiration (after the letter, postaspiration; before the letter, preaspiration).
4. The macron below a stop letter (e.g., ṯ) marks the corresponding spirant. As a legacy convention, this may be expressed by the letter h after the stop letter.
5. The caron marks palatoalveolar articulation of a sibilant (e.g. š = /ʃ/. As a legacy convention, this may be expressed by the letter h after the stop letter.
6. The acute on a consonant letter marks palatalization. e.g. (ś = /ɕ/).
7. The degree sign (°) after a letter marks labialization.
8. The tilde (~) on a letter marks nasalization.
9. The dot below a letter shifts the point of articulation backwards: after an alveolar, it marks retroflexion (e.g., ṣ = /ʂ/); after a velar, it marks uvular articulation (e.g., ḳ = /q/). It is also used for backing vowels (e.g., ị = /ɨ/).
10. The dot above n marks the velar nasal, above r a uvular rhotic. The velarized lateral may be marked by a dot above also, though the special letter ł may be used instead.
11. The comma below a stop letter marks a flap (e.g., d̦ = /ɾ/), below a sibilant letter marks a dental sibilant (e.g. ș = /s̪/), below a vowel letter lowers the vowel (o̦ = /ɒ/).
12. The period (.) can be used to break up letter sequences in order to suppress digraphs where needed (e.g., s.h = /sh/ instead of sh = /ʃ/).
13. Long vowels are marked with an acute accent (e.g. á), or spelled double.
14. Accent, where distinctive, is marked by a grace accent on the vowel (e.g. à), which combines with the acute into a circumflex (e.g., â).
15. Where a diacritic is redundant because the same letter without the diacritic does not occur in the transcription of the language discussed, the redundant diacritic may be omitted.

Charts

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palato-alveolar	Alveolo-palatal	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Laryngeal
Stops	voiceless	p	t				ṭ	ḱ	k	ḳ
	voiced	b	d				ḍ	ǵ	g	g̣
	aspirated	p'	t'				ṭ'	ḱ'	k'	ḳ'
Fricatives	voiceless	f	ṯ	s	š	ś	ṣ	ḵ́	ḵ	ḳ̱	h
	voiced	v	ḏ	z	ž	ź	ẓ	ǵ̱	g̱	g̣̱
Nasals	voiced	m	n				ṇ	ń	ṅ	ṇ̇
	voiceless	m'	n'				ṇ'	ń'	ṅ'	ṇ̇'
Flaps	voiced	b̦	d̦
Laterals	voiced		l				ḷ	ĺ	ł
	voiceless		l'				ḷ'	ĺ'	ł'
Rhotics	voiced		r				ṛ	ŕ		ṙ
	voiceless		r'				ṛ'	ŕ'		ṙ'
Semivowels	voiced	w						j			3
	voiceless	w'						j'

Vowels

	Front		Non-front
	Unround	Round	Unround	Round
Close	i	y	ị	u
Mid	e	ø	ẹ	o
Open	æ	ø̦	a	o̦

See also

• Universal Transcription System (Jörg Rhiemeier)
• Glastonbury University Transcription System