Ashouctian/Orthography

The Ashouctian language uses the Latin alphabet. The 43 consonants and 10 vowels of the language are not represented in a 1:1 grapheme to phoneme ratio, but the language can be transcribed with little ambiguity.

Alphabet

Despite the large number of sounds in the language, it only uses 18 letters of the Latin alphabet, but also makes use of the accute accent.

a á b c d e é f g h i í l m n o p r s t u ú

The letters are named as follows:

á bé cé dé é af gé há í al ám án ó pé ár sé té ú

Letters with the acute accent are ignored when reciting the alphabet. The language never makes use of j k q v w x y and z outside of foreign names. Loanwords are transcribed phonetically into the language. 

Ashouctianization of Loanwords

Grapheme	IPA	Ashouctian spelling
j	/d͡ʒ/	sh
	/j/	gh and strong vowel
	/ʒ/	sh
k	/k/	c
q(u)	/k/
	/kʷ/	co
v	/v/	mh
w	/v/
	/w/	bh
	/u/	u
x	/ks/	cs
	/x/	ch and weak vowel
y	/j/	gh and strong vowel
	/i/	i
z	/z/	s and weak vowel

Consonants

		Labial		Alveolar			Post-alv.		Palatal	Velar		Uvular		Glottal
		Plain	Lab.	Central		Lat.	Pl.	Lab.		Pl.	Lab.	Pl.	Lab.
				Pl.	Lab.
Nasal		m	mo	n	no					ng	ngo
Stop	Voiceless	p	po	t	to					c	co	c	co
	Voiced	b		d	do					g	go
Affricate				th			t
Fricative	Voiceless	f	fo	s	so	l	s	so		ch	cho	ch	cho	h / fh
	Voiced	mh					sh	sho				gh	gho
Approximant						l			gh		bh
Trill	Voiceless				rh
	Voiced				r

The glottal fricative is transcribed in two ways. After m, t, r, s, g, c, and b and as well after the digraphs mh, th, rh, sh, gh, ch, and bh, it is transcribed fh. It is transcribed h anywhere else.  Some graphemes represent two sounds and these constitute strong and weak sounds. Consonants are weak next to an a or u. Consonants, similarly, are strong next to an e or i. O without an acute accent is not a vowel grapheme, so modifying graphemes go after the o in co. Any grapheme other than the 9 in the table below can be written next to any vowel.

Grapheme	t	c	co	s	so	l	ch	cho	gh
Weak sound	/t/	/k/	/kʷ/	/s/	/sʷ/	/l/	/χ/	/χʷ/	/ʁ/
Strong sound	/t͡ʃ/	/q/	/qʷ/	/ʃ/	/ʃʷ/	/ɬ/	/x/	/xʷ/	/j/

Vowels

Vowels, due to the presence of the strong consonants, are complex. Many of the vowels in written Ashouctian are not pronounced. 

• Long vowels (á, é, í, ú) are always pronounced.
• Vowels on either side of a long vowel near a strong consonant are not pronounced and are only there to satisfy orthography rules.

In the table below, W is a weak pronounciation of a strong consonant, P is a plain consonant that has a single pronunciation, and S is a strong pronunciation of a strong consonant.

	a	e̞	i	u	aː	e̞ː	iː	uː	ai	au	e̞i
P_P	a	e	i	u	á	é	í	ú	ai	au	ei
W_W	a	aeu	aiu	u	á	aéu	aíu	ú	agh	abh	aegh
S_W	ea	eu	ia	iu	eá	éu	ía	iú	eagh	eao	egh
W_S	ai	ae	ui	ue	ái	aé	uí	úe	agh	abh	aei
S_S	eai	e	i	iue	eái	é	í	iúe	eai	eaui	eghi

Other characters

dh is used to indicate hiatus between vowels or indicate that a grapheme normally read as a single vowel is, in fact, two seperate vowels (i.e, ía /i:/ > ídha /i:.a).