Lunar script
The Lunar or Nuyxo script is an abugida used to write the languages of Aylongam. It is named for the Liyuri goddess of the moon, who is believed to have brought writing to mankind. The script is traditionally written with a brush, although graphite and charcoal are common for quick or temporary notes. It script consists of 27 consonant letters, 11 vowels, and one vowel length character.
Each consonant letter has an inherent vowel which is not otherwise represented in writing. However, the script also lacks a vowel suppressor character, so vowel-less consonants must be inferred by the reader.
The Lunar script has a standard transliteration that is used across all languages using the script, independently of any language-specific romanization. This is used when comparing the orthographies of various languages.
Consonants
The consonants of the Lunar script are commonly arranged according to their place and manner of articulation, using the sound values they are believed to have possessed in Old Xindvâ.
| Labial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | Guttural | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voiceless stop | | pô
/p/ |
| tô
/t/ |
| chô
/tɕ/ |
| kô
/k/ |
| qô
/q/ |
| Aspirate | | phô
/pʰ ~ f/ |
| thô
/tʰ ~ θ/ |
| xô
/ɕ/ |
| khô
/kʰ ~ x/ |
| qhô
/qʰ ~ χ/ |
| Voiced stop | | bô
/b/ |
| dô
/d/ |
| jô
/dʑ/ |
| gô
/g/ |
| ȝô
/ʁ ~ ɣ/ |
| Nasal | | mô
/m/ |
| nô
/n/ |
| nhô
/ɲ/ |
| ngô
/ŋ/ |
||
| Fricative | | sô
/s/ |
| hô
/h/ | ||||||
| | zô
/z/ |
| zhô
/ʑ/ |
|||||||
| Approximant | | vô
/w/ |
| lô
/l/ |
| yô
/j/ |
| rô
/r/ | ||
The original inherent vowel of the consonants was /ə/, and it remains so in Xindvâ, but other languages lacking /ə/ as a phoneme assign different vowels in this role.
The four glide consonants each have two additional forms, which are attached to other consonants to indicate a medial consonant (between the base consonant and the vowel) or a final consonant (immediately after the vowel).
| Independent letter | Medial form | Final form |
|---|---|---|
| | ◌ | ◌ |
| | ◌ | ◌ |
| | ◌ | ◌ |
| | ◌ | ◌ |
The h- diacritic
The (???), ◌, is a diacritic that serves to modify consonants in some way, most notably marking gemination.
Vowels
In order to indicate vowels other than the inherent vowel, diacritics must be added to the consonant letter. Each vowel has an independent form, used for syllables without an initial consonant, and a dependent form, used when they follow a consonant.
| Front | Mid | Back | Umlauted | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | | i
/i/ |
◌ | | û
/ɨ/ |
◌ | | u
/u/ |
◌ | | ü
/y/ |
◌ |
| Mid | | e
/e/ |
◌ | | ô
/ə/ |
— | | o
/o/ |
◌ | | ö
/ø/ |
◌ |
| Low | | è
/ɛ/ |
◌ | | a
/a/ |
◌ | | ò
/ɔ/ |
◌ | | ȍ
/œ/ |
◌ |
The letters were not originally present in the script and are later innovations created by adding a stroke to their corresponding back vowel. However, only the first two are used in real orthographies, with the last one being added for the sake of completeness.
Vowels can be marked as long by adding the letter , called zor liut, after the letter containing the vowel. The script also lacks a vowel suppressor, and so vowel-less consonants must be inferred by the reader.
Construction
Owing to the large number of ways to modify letters, there are a number of complexities that arise when using multiple diacritics on a single letter.
Diacritics often shift around when there is more than one of the same side of the letter, their positioning depending on what others are present. Compare for example:
- ◌ -ay vs ◌ -òy
- ◌ -rû vs ◌ -ûv
As these examples show, the order of the diacritics does not correspond to the order in which they are read. Naturally, a number of ligatures are required when simple rearrangement is not enough to fit a pair of diacritics together:
| Ligature | Components |
|---|---|
| ◌ | ◌ -r- + ◌ -u |
| ◌ | ◌ -r- + ◌ -v |
| ◌ | ◌ -a + ◌ -l |
| ◌ | ◌ -i + ◌ -l |
| ◌ | ◌ -u + ◌ -r |
Diacritics are not the only part of the Lunar script that change based on context; certain base letters also come in two forms: an open form, which has an ascender or descender, and a checked form, in which those components are shortened. The letters (as well as its derivative ) are open by default, and become checked when a diacritic would otherwise overlap with them:
- >
The letters on the other hand, are checked by default, and only take on their open forms if both unobstructed above and there is another letter following or preceding respectively:
- >
The letter cannot have any diacritics below it, and so when it is necessary to modify it with characters that normally go below a letter, ligatures result, namely ve and vyô.
Punctuation
There are two main punctuation marks in the Lunar script:
- (???) ( ) is equivalent to a comma. It marks pauses in sentences and separates items in a list.
- (???) ( ) is equivalent to a full stop, marking the end of a sentence. It is written doubled ( ) after most letters, but after letters which have a right-side descender— —only a single (???) is written.
Numerals
Like many other scripts, Lunar uses decimal positional notation using these ten digits:
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | | | | | | |
Extended script
As more linguistic work is done in the Lunar script, the letter inventory has expanded in order to denote sounds which are not phonemic in Liyuric languages. These include:
| Letter | Value |
|---|---|
| | bhô
/v ~ β/ |
| | dhô
/ð/ |
| | vyô
/ɥ/ |