Forum:Linguistics/Multigraphs

Do you want to return to the index?

I'm presently working on a Conlang developed out based on some relatively scant notes [which I'm keeping to out of personal interest now that I've started], however, a major problem that it has presented me is that within these notes, there's a heavy use of Frictives, of which English and most Western European languages have a relatively limit use of. As such, I'm looking for a way to represent these sounds in the latin alphabet that would be vaguely phonetic to English speaking ears since I'm presenting this to a layman audience and find over use of accents costs attention spans. Presently, I've decided to fall to Multigraphs, with as many as 3 letters representing a single sound, however I'm not sure about the smoothness of this and I'm curious for input on it. It's a base up design, which should hopefully ressemble something organic. Unfortunately, at present it looks something like Deepspeach:

Ihui gyirzugith piizjidh xhi'wh piith. Dheith eigh zjanisjuth dhiitheizjifh iod ihui kuith. 'Hlinu'xh khadhi tjozjifh oigyh ihui Peiyasjuth. Vfuisjuth vfoizjifh. Dhidhiitheizjifh dhisjith.

Here's the Phonology Guide:


 * sz-ʂ


 * rz-ʐ


 * sh-ʃ


 * sj-ʃʲ/ɕ


 * j-ʒ


 * zj-ʒʲ


 * shy-ç


 * gy-ʝ


 * gh-ɣ


 * gw-ɣ˕


 * kh-ʝ


 * xh-χ
 * x-x


 * 'wh-ʕ


 * 'hl-ħ


 * fh-ɸ


 * vf-β


 * f-f


 * v-v


 * wr-ʋ


 * th-θ


 * dh-ð


 * t-t


 * d-d


 * k-k


 * g-g


 * tj-c


 * ghy-ɟ


 * h-h

Opinion on how this looks?
 * p-p

Advice to improve?

Or else perhaps your own experiences with Multigraphs (Good or Bad)?

--Fauxlosophe (talk) 02:33, December 7, 2012 (UTC)

I really can't say much until you provide us with a phonotactical system. There are quite some ways to improve that romanisation system, by using common elements, but I wouldn't know where to start seeing as I wouldn't know which combinations of sounds are allowed. You might want to resort to diacritics for some ofthe sounds, as well as use simpler combinations and simplify some others. For example, /c ɟ/ could be mapped to, as in Sanskrit. 13:53, December 7, 2012 (UTC) ~) The Elector, Darkness Immaculate