Voksigid orthography

The orthography, phonology, and phonotactics of Voksigid are summarized below.

1. The alphabet consists of all the Roman letters except q and x.

The letters l and r will never be used to distinguish two words, so that in a technical sense they will be considered the same phoneme. In fact, however, the official sounds of l and r will be as shown below. Because people whose native languages have only one sound similar to both, as Japanese and Korean, may use that sound for both letters, we will never use them to distinguish minimal pairs. A similar comment holds for s and z; Spanish, for example, has no /z/ while German tends to pronounce initial s as [z] and Italian does the same with intervocalic s.

1. The sounds of the letters are as follows:

   a (Eng. art, Fr. la)

   b (Eng. boy)

   c (Ital. cento = ch in Eng. chief, sh in Eng. shoe)

   d (Eng. dog)

   e (Eng. bed, Ger. Bett, beten)

   f (Eng. find)

   g (Eng. girl)

   h (Eng. have, Ger. Bach) -- the [x] sound is allowed for the benefit of such as Russian speakers who cannot pronounce [h]

   i (Eng. in, machine)

   j (Eng. jam, Fr. journal)

   k (Eng. key)

   l (Eng. love, Ger. Liebe)

   m (Eng. man)

   n (Eng. sun; before k or g, as in Eng. sung)

   o (Brit. Eng. on, aw in Am. Eng. dawn, Ger. so)

   p (Eng. pin)

   r (Eng. red, Fr. rouge, Span. rojo)

   s (Eng. sing)

   t (Eng. top)

   u (Eng. push, rude)

   v (Eng. very)

   w (Eng. wash)

   y (Eng. yet)

   z (Eng. zero)

   It should be noted that for the letters c e h i j n o u, sounds are included that are in some languages considered distinct phonemes; this is done to allow for ease in pronouncing by speakers of as many languages as possible.

   For items 3-5, the following terminology applies:

   Vowel = a e i o u, or any of the diphthongs listed.

   Diphthong = ai au oi.

   Pure consonant = b c d f g h j k p s t v z.

   Liquid = l r.

   Nasal = m n.

   Glide = w y.

   Semivowel = any liquid, nasal, or glide, as defined here.

   Consonant = any pure consonant or semivowel, as defined here.

   Voiced consonant = b d g j v z.

   Unvoiced consonant = c f h k p s t.

2. A syllable consists of one to four phonemes, of the form [P] [S] V [C] where bracketed elements are optional, P is any pure consonant, S any semivowel, V any vowel, and C any consonant, except:
   1. The final consonant of a syllable may not be a glide or h.
   2. The final consonant of one syllable, combined with the initial consonant(s) of an immediately following syllable in a word, may not make any of the combinations forbidden in 4.
3. The following consonant combinations are forbidden:
   1. Voiced + unvoiced consonant or vice versa.
   2. Nasal consonant + nonhomoorganic stop. This specifically forbids the combination of m + any of (c d g j k t) and the combination of n with (b p)
4. If a word ends in a pure consonant and the following word does not begin with a pure consonant, or if a word ends in a semivowel and the following word begins in a vowel, a distinct pause must be articulated at the word boundary. In other cases, a pause may be made at a boundary, but need not be. A word boundary is defined as anywhere where a blank space is written.

(Based on the orthography page on the Voksigid site)