The Archive
Learn more about the world of Crimsonheart Chronicles through articles written by Jake R. C. Wells.
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Learn more about the world of Crimsonheart Chronicles through articles written by Jake R. C. Wells.
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The vowels of the Spiròt language are much simpler than the consonants. There are five vowels in total (fig. 2), four that are pronounced and one that is silent, called the Blank Vowel. When a blank vowel is attached to a consonant, that consonant and the one that follows it are spoken back to back, without any vowel sound in between. The four pronounced vowels are labelled according to their pronunciation. Like the consonants, for now readers may simply consider these names for the vowels (ie. the 'a' vowel is an open-front vowel).
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In Spiròt, the basic units of words are syllabic blocks, or characters. The basic components of these characters are the consonant and the vowel, which are written together from left to right. Words are constructed from a series of these syllabic characters written from top to bottom and sentences are made up of words written from left to right and ending with a small circle, similar to a period (fig. 1).
As a general rule, no consonant is written without a vowel, save for the last consonant in a word. In practice, however, there are some words for which the pronunciation has two consonant sounds back to back, with no vowel sound between them. Furthermore, there are words that end or begin with a vowel sound. In such cases, there are a set of rules for writing such words to help maintain the proper syllabic structure of the word. |
The third rule for how words are written relates to words that begin with a vowel sound. Generally, words are expected to begin with consonants. In cases where they don’t, a silent consonant character is attached to the word-initial vowel. This character is not pronounced and thus is only used to maintain the syllabic structure of the word-initial character (fig. 6). |
Lastly, in the special case of compound words, which are typically reserved for complex post-positions/case markers, which will be discussed in an article on grammar, the silent ‘h’ character is used again. In this case, the silent ‘h’ separates the two components of the compound (fig. 7). |
The first two rules describe when stops and affricates are voiced. Firstly, when a stop/affricate is between two vowels, or when the next consonant is another stop/affricate, it is always voiced, as is shown in the romanizations in figure 1. This excludes the glottal stop, both in terms of becoming voiced, as the glottal stop is never voiced, and in terms of causing voicing, as per the next rule. It also excludes situations where two stops are spoken together, without a vowel in between.
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The second rule (figure 2) states that stops/affricates at the end of a word or that are followed by a glottal stop, are sometimes voiced. The behaviour of stops/affricates in these circumstances can be somewhat unpredictable, especially at the beginning and end of words, or when two such sounds occur without a vowel sound between them. In these cases, the proper pronunciation must usually be memorized. |
Thirdly, two characters are pronounced with an unwritten vowel at the end of a word. These two characters are the palatal and labio-velar fricative, romanized as ‘ç’ and ‘wh’ (figure 3). Specifically, ‘ç’ is pronounced with an unwritten 'i' sound while ‘wh’ is pronounced with an unwritten 'a'. These unwritten vowels are always pronounced in their neutral form and occur only at the end of a word. Otherwise, when these consonants are written, they are written with vowels, even if the written vowel is one of these sounds. Note that these vowels are included in the romanization, but not in written Spiròt. |
The fourth rule concerns unpronounced consonants. When the glottal stop character occurs at the start of a word or the glottal fricative occurs at the end of the word, they are not pronounced (figure 4). This is somewhat similar to the English name ‘Sarah’, which has an unpronounced ‘h’ at the end. |
Maròch
Verb/Adj: Want or desire /desired or desirable Tliçi
Verb/Adj: rebirth or birth/ reborn or newborn Fòyap
Verb/Adj: Hear/ Audible |
Rùnat
Verb/Adj: Need or require /necessary O'áwha
Verb/Adj: Harmonize or improve/ harmonious or better Wunak
Verb/Adj: Look/ Scenic or good to look at |
Nawícç
Verb/Adj: Hope /hopeful Yoça'áçi
Verb/Adj: Bond/Bound (together) Worak
Verb/Adj: See/ Visible |
Kíwách
Verb/Adj: Have or own/own(as an adjective) Uyip
Verb/Adj: Use/ usable Amùt
Verb/Adj: Eat/ Hungry or Tasty |
Go'
Verb/Adj: Give/ given or provided Sùmat
Verb/Adj: Help/ helpful Ahlit
Verb/Adj: Taste/ Tastable or Edible |
Di'
Verb/Adj: Take/ taken or withdrawn Sifòtl
Verb/Adj: Listen/ Dulcet or good to listen to Kíhlòp
Verb/Adj: Speak/ Vocal |