Aifan
An orthography for fantasy worlds
In the tables below, the glyphs in the IPA column will be displayed correctly only if you have a suitable font. Lucida Sans Unicode or Arial Unicode (which are pre-installed with recent versions of MS Windows and MS Office), but you might want to install a specialist font such as —
For those without an IPA font, the X-SAMPA column shows that ASCII-only scheme.
This page sets out a scheme I devised several years ago for use in my FRPG campaign setting, the world of Aifa. In my notes I wrote:
“A uniform orthography has been used for all Aifan words and proper names, whatever the language of origin. This doesn’t mean that there any such uniform scheme across all Aifan languages!”
The goals were to use letters with no accents or other diactrics for the basic sounds – diacritics being reserved for vowel length – and to have no case-sensitivity (unlike Klingon, q and Q represent the same sound!).
There are some limitations with this approach, particularly with vowels: many characters (glyphs) do not represent only one sound. And some English sounds – e.g., the weak English r, /ɹ/ (IPA), /r\`/ (X-SAMPA) – aren’t represented (being uncommon in Aifan languages).
But this is not too great a problem as vowels generally show wide variation between different speakers… and pedantically following the rigour of the IPA or X-SAMPA seems silly for a fantasy setting!
Feel free to use it, and to modify it as you will.
Consonants
Several single letters, and the digraph sh have their usual English values. Other letters and digraphs have only one of two English values. The letters c, j, q, and r and digraphs derived from them have very un-English values!
As Unicode support has moved on, some of the digraphs might now be represented by single non-English letters where these are (a) appropriate, and (b) supported in an available font! These are shown in brackets in the table below.
| Glyph(s) | IPA | IPA in HTML | X-SAMPA | Description (and examples) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| b | b |
b
|
b | a voiced bilabial plosive, as in English |
| bh | β |
β
|
B | a voiced bilabial fricative, as in Spanish proverbio, cf. English v, w |
| c | c |
c
|
c | an unvoiced palatal plosive, cf. English tune |
| ch | ç |
ç
|
C | an unvoiced palatal fricative, as in German ich, NOT as in Buch, cf. English huge |
| d | d |
d
|
d | a voiced alveolar plosive, as in English |
|
dh
( ð ) |
ð |
ð
|
D | a voiced dental fricative, as in English the, NOT as in thin |
|
dzh
( dʒ ) |
ʤ |
ʤ
|
dZ | an affricate, as in English judge |
| f | f |
f
|
f | a voiced glottal fricative, as in English |
| g | g |
g
|
g | a voiced velar plosive, as in English gone, NOT as in gin |
|
gh
( ȝ ) |
ɣ |
ɣ
|
G | a voiced velar fricative, as in German pfennig, Spanish paga |
| h | h |
h
|
h | a voiced glottal fricative, as in English |
| hl | ɬ |
ɬ
|
K | an unvoiced alveolar lateral fricative as in Welsh llyfr |
| hr | rʰ |
rʰ
|
r_h | an aspirated (unvoiced) alveolar trill, as in Welsh |
|
hw
( ƕ ) |
ʍ |
ʍ
|
W | an unvoiced labial velar fricative, as in English why, NOT as in who |
| j | j |
j
|
j | a voiced palatal approximant, as in English yes, beauty, German ja |
| k | k |
k
|
k | a voiced velar plosive, as in English |
| kh | x |
x
|
x | an unvoiced velar fricative, as in Scottish loch, German Buch, NOT as in ich |
| l | l |
l
|
l | a voiced alveolar lateral approximant, as in English |
| lj | ʎ |
ʎ
|
L | a voiced palatal lateral approximant, as in Portugese galhina, Spanish llama, Italian migliano |
| m | m |
m
|
m | a voiced bilabial nasal, as in English |
| n | n |
n
|
n | a voiced alveolar nasal, as in English |
|
ng
( ŋ ) |
ŋ |
ŋ
|
N | a voiced velar nasal, as in English singer, NOT as in finger |
| nj | ɲ |
ɲ
|
n^ | a voiced palatal nasal, as in Portugese vinho, French gneau, Italian gnomo |
| p | p |
p
|
p | a voiceless bilabial plosive, as in English |
| ph | ɸ |
ɸ
|
p\ | a voiceless bilabial fricative, as in Greek phthongos, cf. English p, f |
| q | q |
q
|
q | an unvoiced uvular plosive, as in Arabic Qur’an |
| r | r |
r
|
r | a voiced alveolar trill, as in Spanish garra |
| ɾ |
ɾ
|
4 | a voiced alveolar flap, as in English quarry | |
| rh | ʀ |
ʀ
|
R | a voiced uvular trill, as in French |
|
s
( ſ ) |
s |
s
|
s | a voiceless alveolar fricative, as in English |
| sh | ʃ |
ʃ
|
S | a voiceless postalveolar fricative, as in English |
| t | t |
t
|
t | a voiceless alveolar plosive, as in English |
|
th
( รพ ) |
θ |
θ
|
T | a voiceless dental fricative, as in English thin, NOT as in the |
| tsh | ʧ |
ʧ
|
tS | an affricate, as in English church |
| v | v |
v
|
v | a voiced labiodental fricative, as in English |
| w | w |
w
|
w | a voiced labial-velar approximant, as in English |
| z | z |
z
|
z | a voiced alveolar fricative, as in English |
|
zh
( ʒ ) |
ʒ |
ʒ
|
Z | a voiced postalveolar fricative, as in English treasure, azure, evasion |
Vowels & diphthongs
| Glyph(s) | IPA | IPA in HTML | X-SAMPA | Description (and examples) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| a | a |
a
|
a | a fully open front vowel, as in French ami, German Mann |
| æ |
æ
|
{ | a rather open front vowel, as in English act, Caedmon | |
| æ | ə |
ə
|
@ | a mid central vowel, as in English potter, the |
| ai | aɪ |
aɪ
|
aI | a diphthong, as in English aisle, Spanish baile, NOT as in English plain |
| au | aʊ |
aʊ
|
aU | a diphthong, as in English loud, brown, German braun, NOT as in English maul |
| e | e |
e
|
e | a close-mid front vowel, as in French été, German sehr, Italian che (cf. the diphthong in English deign) |
| ɛ |
ɛ
|
E | an open-mid front vowel, as in English bet, heifer | |
| ei | eɪ |
eɪ
|
eI | a diphthong, as in English deign, feint, NOT as in feisty |
| i | i |
i
|
i | a close front vowel, as in English see, French ici, Spanish si |
| ɪ |
ɪ
|
I | a rather close front vowel, as in English pin, pretty | |
| o | o |
o
|
o | a close-mid back vowel, as in French rosé, German so, Italian voce |
| ɔ |
ɔ
|
O | an open-mid back vowel, as in English pot, sorry | |
| ɒ |
ɒ
|
Q | a fully open back vowel, as in English broad, Italian no, French bonne, German Sonne | |
| oi | ɔɪ |
ɔɪ
|
OI | a diphthong, as in English oil, void |
|
ou
( ȣ ) |
ɔʊ |
ɔʊ
|
OU | a diphthong, as in English dough |
|
oe
( œ ) |
ø |
ø
|
2 | a close-mid front vowel, as in French deux, German schön, Norwegian født |
| œ |
œ
|
9 | an open-mid front vowel, as in French neuf, German zwölf (alt. zwoelf ) | |
| u | u |
u
|
u | a close back vowel, as in English true, zoo |
| ʊ |
ʊ
|
U | a rather close back vowel, as in English pull, good | |
| ɤ |
ɤ
|
7 | a close mid back vowel, as in English | |
| ʌ |
ʌ
|
V | an open mid back vowel, as in English | |
| ue | y |
y
|
y | a close front vowel, as in French tu, German über, fünf |
| uu | ɯ |
ɯ
|
M | a close back vowel, as in Japanese Fuji, |
| y | ɜ |
ɜ
|
3 | an open mid central vowel, as in English bird, work, wyrm, earth |
Vowel Length
Length of vowels is indicated by diacritics. In digraphs representing single vowel sounds (rather than diphthongs), the diacritic is placed over the first character only.
| Glyph(s) | IPA | IPA in HTML | X-SAMPA | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ō | oː |
oː
|
o: | long (rare) |
| ó | oˑ |
oˑ
|
o:\ | half-long (common) |
| ô | ŏ |
o˘
|
o |
extra-short (rare)
Note: OK, I cheated here: your browser should render the o˘ sequence with the diacritic ˘ above the o… but most don’t… yet. So the character in the IPA column is the equivalent composite glyph [ŏ.]
|
| óe | øˑ |
øˑ
|
2: |
| Copyleft & Creative Commons (cc) 2007–2008 Ant: This work is dual-licensed under both ― | ||||
|
The GNU Free Documentation License |
|
A Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License | |
|
http://homepage.mac.com/antallan/ortho.html |
|
Last updated Friday 8 August 2008 | |
 
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