Universal Transcription System (Jörg Rhiemeier)
For many years, Jörg Rhiemeier used a Universal Transcription System to transcribe all his conlangs. Today, with a more refined understanding of phonology, he no longer uses this system as such, but designs transcriptions according to the phonological needs of the languages, though some of the transcriptions Jörg uses for his conlangs are still loosely based on it. The transcription system is charted below.
Consonants
Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Voiceless stops | p | t | k | ' | |||
Voiced stops | b | d | g | ||||
Voiceless fricatives | f | th | s | sh | jh | kh | h |
Voiced fricatives | v | dh | z | zh | gh | ||
Nasals | m | n | nj | ng | |||
Laterals | l | lj | |||||
Rhotics | r | ||||||
Semivowels | w | j |
In an early version, r was used for a voiced velar fricative, reflecting an idiosyncrasy of the author's native idiolect!
Obviously, this misses several entire places (e.g., retroflex, uvular, pharyneal) and manners of articulation (e.g., lateral fricatives, ejectives, implosives, clicks) of whose existence the author wasn't aware back then.
Vowels
Front unround |
Front round |
Central unround |
Back round | |
---|---|---|---|---|
High | i | y | u | |
Mid | e | oe | o | |
Low | ae | a | ao |
Again, many possible vowels are not covered.