Greadian: Alphabet, pronunciation, orthography

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Contents 1 The Cyrillic Alphabet for Greadian 1.1 Digraphs 1.2 About some phonemes 1.3 Letter variations 1.4 Why so many letters? 2 Phonemes in a word 2.1 In the beginning of a word 2.2 In the middle of a word 2.3 In the end of a word 3 Orthography 3.1 Double letters 3.2 И/Й, І/Ї or ІИ? 3.2.1 When И/Й? 3.2.2 When І/Ї? 3.2.3 When ІИ? 3.3 When О/Ө, when Ы/Ю? 3.3.1 When О/Ө? 3.3.2 When Ы/Ю?

The Cyrillic Alphabet for Greadian

Greadian is originally written with Greek alphabet and Latin transliteration exists because of this computer era (to make sure that the coding doesn't limit the ability to write Greadian).

The Cyrillic alphabet is the official one and includes 47 letters. The idea is that each letter represents only one phoneme.

Phonetically Greadian is very "lazy", which means that the sounds are pronounced very close to each other and without much of work for mouth parts. Vowels are practically never rounded and consonants tend to be as close to alveolar area as possible. Each vowel has various variations, which I will not even note here, because they aren't phonemic. Vowels also have somewhat of a tonality, which isn't phonemic either. I will write more about this in the phonology section.

• Аа [ipa: ɑ~a~ʌ] Greadian [a] is never rounded but it's allophony may vary!
  • [ɑ] is pronounced like a in English word 'spa' but short.
• Яя [ipa: ɑː~aː~ʌː] This is just the long counterpart to the above one.
• Бб [ipa: b] Pronounce it somewhat "lazy" - try to make the back parts of lips meet.
  • Usually Greadian prefers [b]. It is pronounced like b in English 'but'.
  • In some dialects, and optionally, when written doubled (like in ябба), it is pronounced []. It is pronounced strong and very b-like. Try to put lower lip behind upper teeth and flip the lip outward letting it strike the teeth.
• Вв [ipa: ʋ̱] Upper teeth are touching the skin below the lower lip.
  • Pronounced like v in Finnish 'aave'.
  • In some dialects it may be pronounced [v]
• Гг [ipa: ɡ] This is pronounced like g in English 'guess'.
• Ѓѓ [ipa: dʲ] This is soft (palatalised) [d] and is a phoneme in Greadian. The place where tongue is when pronouncing this, varies.
  • This letter is pronounced like д(d) in Russian 'дело' [dʲeːla].
• Һһ [ipa: h] This is pronounced like h in English 'hate'
• Ћћ [ipa: ɦ] This is pronounced like h in English 'behind' or Finnish 'paha' or like г in Ukrainian 'гора'.
• Дд [ipa: d] This is pronounced like d in English 'admit'
• Ее [ipa: e] This is pronounced like e in English 'bed' (Canadian and Australian English).
• Єє [ipa: eː] Long counterpart to the above one.
• Зз [ipa: z] This is pronounced like z in English 'zero'.
• Ии [ipa: i] This is pronounced like y in English 'happy'
• Йй [ipa: iː] This is long counterpart to the above one, pronounced like ea in English 'easy'
• Щщ [ipa: tʰ~th] The pronunciation area varies from dental to post-alveolar depending on the phonemes around it.
  • It is pronounced either like t in English 'tea' or like a combination of t in English 'seat' and h in 'heat'.
• Іі [ipa: i/j/ij] This letter has several values in the following rules:
  • It is pronounced [i] like y in English 'happy' when:
    • After a consonant but before a vowel. For example ексяріа 'addition'.
    • Between consonants. For example кнікя [knikɑː] 'book'.
  • It is usually pronounced [j] like y in English 'yawn' but try to make it sound more like [i] because Greadian [j] is very slight. It is pronounced [j] when:
    • First letter in a word and before a vowel. For example ієна [jeːna] 'secrecy/puzzle'.
    • May also be pronounced optionally [j] when after a consonant and before a vowel.
  • And as [ij] (remember the slight [j]!) when:
    • In between vowels. For example фаряіа [fɑɾɑːija] 'battle'.
    • In some dialects this is pronounced [jː] so it isn't an error if you pronounce so as well. Just try to keep it slight!
• Її [ipa: iː] This letter is always pronounced same way.
• Кк [ipa: k] This letter is pronounced like k in English 'cake'.
• Ќќ [ipa: tʲ] This letter is soft (palatalised) [t]. It is also a phoneme in Greadian. The place where tongue is when pronouncing this, varies.
  • This letter is pronounced like т(t) in Russian 'тело' [тʲeːla] 'body'.
• Лл [ipa: l] This letter is pronounced like l in English 'look'.
• Мм [ipa: m] This letter is pronounced like m in English 'man'.
• Нн [ipa: n] This letter is pronounced like n in English 'noon'.
• Ңң [ipa: ŋ] This letter is pronounced like ng in English 'coming' (in some dialects).
• Оо [ipa: o] This letter is pronounced like au in French 'sursaute' or o in Finnish 'koti'.
• Өө [ipa: oː] Long counterpart to the above. Pronounced as o in French 'rose' and oo in Finnish 'kanootti'.
• Пп [ipa: p] This letter is pronounced like p in English word 'cape'.
• Рр [ipa: ɾ~r] Like in Spanish, when written single, it is pronounced [ɾ], when written doubled, [r].
• Сс [ipa: s] In most of cases this is simply [s] but often in the end of a word, especially after [o], it is pronounced [s̺~s̻], when it sounds like it was somewhere between [s] and [ʃ].
• Тт [ipa: t] This letter is pronounced like t in English 'cat'.
• Уу [ipa: u] Unlike the common [u], this is less rounded!
• Үү [ipa: uː] Long counterpart to the above one.
• Ўў [ipa: y] Unlike the common [y], this is less rounded!
• Ұұ [ipa: yː] Long counterpart to the above one.
• Фф [ipa: f] This letter is pronounced like f in English 'fat'.
• Хх [ipa: x~ç] The phoneme [x/ç] is slowly falling into [h] but in Cyrillic alphabet I have strictly separated them.
  • This letter sounds like ch in Scottish 'loch' or German 'ich'.
• Ыы [ipa: o̞] This is same to Оо but is "lowered" a bit. It is usually pronounced in lower tone, or more backed than normal [o].
• Юю [ipa: o̞ː] Long counterpart to the above one.
• Цц [ipa: ʦ̻] This is an interesting letter. It represents both a phoneme and an allophone. The rule is following:
  • It is a phoneme when it isn't separated between the stem and a morphological suffix.
    • Царгяме [ʦ̻ɑɾɡɑːme] 'I use my instinct'.
  • It is an allophone when it is separated between the stem and a morphological suffix.
    • Кляце [klɑːʦ̻e] 'you babble' (may be written so, no confusion, but would be better when written клятсе as the -се is a suffix for second person singular in verbs).
• Ѕѕ [ipa: ʣ] This is a very archaic sound that has fully fallen into palatalised d (see Ѓѓ) already by Medieval Greadian. However, this exists in Greadian phonology, but never as a phoneme as where it was a phoneme, it has become palatalised [d].
  • This letter is pronounced as ds in English 'lads'.
• Чч [ipa: ʧ] This letter is only for foreign and ancient Greadian words. It is pronounced like ch in English 'chess'.
• Џџ [ipa: ʤ] This letter is only for foreign and ancient Greadian words. It is pronounced like j and dg in English 'judge'.
• Шш [ipa: ʃ] This letter is only for foreign and ancient Greadian words. It is pronounced like sh in English 'shake'.
• Жж [ipa: ʒ] This letter is only for foreign and ancient Greadian words. It is pronounced like si in English 'division'.
• Ъъ [ipa: ʔ~'] This letter separates certain syllables with a glottal stop or a stronger stress. Used for consonants.
• Ьь [ipa: ʔ~'] This letter separates certain syllables with a glottal stop or a stronger stress. Used for vowels.

Digraphs

There are only two digraphs in this writing system, which are following:

• гі [ipa: ʎ/ʎː] depending on its place in the word and the phonemes around it, its pronunciation varies a bit. The rules are following:
  • It is pronounced [ʎ] when being in the beginning of a word (and then it's always before a vowel). For example гіярос [ʎɑːɾos̻] 'a wanderer'.
  • It is pronounced [ʎː] when being in between of vowels. For example ягіос [ɑːʎːos̻].
  • In some dialects this may be pronounced [j/j̞ː] instead of [ʎ/ʎː] but then the [j] is not slight like when written with і.
• іи [ipa: iː] This digraph is just made to make orthography look neater and differ some morphemes from each other. The most often it is used in the beginning of a word when the [i] is long.

About some phonemes

Following letters aren't considered as vowels or consonants, but they are still phonemes. They are usually just called stops.

• Ъъ
• Ьь

Following are always considered as phonemes although they are either written or pronounced with combined phonemes:

• гі
• Щщ

Following letters AREN'T used in Greadian, but are added for using them in loan and ancient Greadian words:

• Чч
• Џџ
• Шш
• Жж

Following letters are quite rarely used:

• Ѓѓ
• Ќќ
• Цц
• Ѕѕ
• Ыы
• Юю
• Ъъ
• Ьь

Letter variations

I recommend to avoid variations, but the following ones I have used in some texts.

• Before 1927 a few letters had also a different form:
  • Хх = Ҳҳ
  • Єє = Ѣѣ
  • Ұұ = Ѵѵ
• Nowadays the variations are following:
  • Хх = Ҳҳ
  • Єє = Ээ

Why so many letters?

When I was writing Greadian with Greek alphabet, I met a lot of problems because of lack of letters for phonemes. Greadian is a highly agglutinative language and it allows phoneme combinations quite freely. That means that it's almost impossible to make two letter combinations for a new phoneme. Let's go little bit deeper into this topic.

Why Greadian has so many vowels? A long and a short vowel having an own letter, why?

Well, Greadian, pretty much like Finnish and Hungarian for example, has a strict distinction between long and short phonemes, especially vowels. If you don't write a long vowel where it should be, the result may be a bad misunderstanding. An example of that could be няксос, with long vowel, which means 'no one' and наксос, with short vowel, which means 'problematic'.

Unlike Finnish and Hungarian, Greadian has also a "moving" long vowel in some situations, pretty much like Greek still does. The difference is that Greek has it with nouns, but Greadian doesn't accept that for nouns hence misunderstandings. Some prepositions and affixes do that often though, because they can't be misunderstood and they help the speech go faster and more fluent. Compare these clauses: Ећы ідөме тйн екклйсіан and ећы ідөме тин екклйсіан. Which one is easier to say? Here you can write it either with short or long vowel because the meaning doesn't change.

The reasons above are main reasons why vowels are separated by lenght. But why they have an own letter instead of just having a diacritic mark? The reason is that the Cyrillic alphabet has so many vowels that there can be freely picked up vowels for all without having to create new ones. Another reason is computer era. Most of fonts don't have cyrillic letters with diacritics and unicode map lacks most of them (and many people don't even put the letters in their own places when creating fonts!). With this alphabet anyone can write it as such fonts as Times New Roman and Palatino Linotype have all of them, and both fonts are in every computer with Windows (I don't know how the situation is with most of Linux distros and Mac).

Now about the consonants. Why so many consonant letters and not doing just combinations?

Again, Greadian is a very flexible language. Many, even linguistically rare, combinations do occur. For instance, one of the most common assimilations is the change between [n] and [ŋ], for example before [k] and [g] the [n] assimilates in most of languages into [ŋ] In Greadian they are SEPARATED phonemes, so you can't write them both with one letter without causing misunderstandings in some few situations. For example: Пянкрос (with [ŋ]) 'remote' and Пяңкрос (with [n]) 'completely covered'.

Some combinations would be possible in order to make for example the sounds [tj] and [dj] but since the letters exist in the Cyrillic alphabet, I gave up as it makes everything easier to read and after you learn the alphabet, it isn't a problem anymore.

Why not using Latin alphabet instead of Cyrillic and Greek? It is hard to learn a new alphabet!

It is always hard to learn a new alphabet, but sometimes you just have to do that. Russian, Hindi, Chinese, Arabic and thousands of other languages are written in other writing systems than Latin. In the case of Greadian, Latin is very unpracticful for many reasons. Latin has a lot of diacritic marks but lacks letters for phonemes. Greadian has a lot of long vowels and because of the combination rules, each phoneme must have its own letter. In latin, in the worst situation, the word would be all covered by diacritics. Hungarian spelling is the most genial for Greadian, but there is still a slight lack of phonemes, that I think I have fixed by now.

In this grammar I will write everything in Cyrillic because it is the best and most suitable writing system and the one that I use mostly when writing in Greadian.

Phonemes in a word

There are a few, but very important rules about phonemes occuring in different parts of a word.

In the beginning of a word

• Any phoneme can occur in the beginning of a word, except Ъъ and Ьь.
• Some of phonemes are pronounced doubled in most of cases, not always even though they are written single. That happens when the following letters are following a vowel in the end of the previous word.
  • Ѓѓ
  • Ћћ
  • Ќќ
  • Ңң

In the middle of a word

• Any phoneme can occur in the middle of a word.
• Some of phonemes are not usually doubled even if they may be pronounced doubled, but it is not a spelling error to write them doubled. The phonemes are following:
  • Ѓѓ
  • Һһ
  • Ћћ
  • Ќќ
  • Ңң
  • Хх

In the end of a word

• Only following phonemes can occur in the end of a word:
  • Following vowels: Аа Яя Ее Єє Ии Йй Оо Өө Уу Үү Ыы Юю
    • But never Іі, Її, Ўў and Ұұ!
  • Сс
  • Нн
  • Рр
  • Лл (only for some affixes from ancient Greadian that are still in use).
  • There are some extremely rare occurrences of Кк and Ѓѓ in very archaic words. This rule doesn't deal with Medieval and Modern Greadian!
  • Stops (Ъъ, Ьь) may also occur in the end of a word, but they aren't considered as consonants, neither as vowels.
    • In older orthography Ъъ was always written in the end of a word after a stop consonant.
• None of phonemes occurs doubled in the end of a word.

Orthography

This is mostly easy in Cyrillic alphabet, but some rules should be still noticed.

Double letters

• Vowels are never written doubled. If they are long, they are written with long counterparts.
• Some consonants don't usually occur doubled although they could. This is more or less a historical and aesthetic rule than practical. The letters are following:
  • Ѓѓ
  • Һһ
  • Ћћ
  • Ќќ
  • Ңң
  • Хх
  • Цц

И/Й, І/Ї or ІИ?

Greadian was originally written with Greek alphabet, which has two letters for the same sound [i]: ι (iota) η (eta) and four diphthongs: ει οι ωι and ιη also representing about the same sound. In Old Greek the orthographical rules for these were very complicated.

In Greadian Cyrillic, because of Greek influence, there are also two i's (і and и) and only one diphthong (іи) [which is actually a digraph] but the rules are different and much easier to learn.

When И/Й?

• Feminine suffix -ис
  • Їнис (looks better when written іинис), крясис... 'dry wine, beautiful'
• Verb infinite -и
  • естй, діяти, етсй... 'to be, to practice, to dare'
• When pronounced [i] in the beginning of a word and before a vowel:
  • иөнос 'ion'
• When pronounced [i] and there is written і in the previous syllable and also before the last syllable when there is і before a vowel (that makes it easier to read and that looks neater):
  • Илїа, Екклйсіа 'Elijah, church'

When І/Ї?

• In the beginning of a word and before a vowel (because then it is pronounced [j].
  • Іояннос, Іүдас, Іяннис... 'John, Judas, Yannis'
• In the middle of a word before a vowel when pronounced [i].
  • фаріасйнос, медіянос... 'faryasinian man (faryasinia = a county in Gread), the middle one'
• In the end of a word before a vowel when pronounced [i].
  • екклйсіа, фарксщряріа, екрєміа, діаватйріо, гөріо... 'church, torture, hate, certificate, pain'

BUT - some exceptions to the rules for И and І:

• The digraph іи
  • Іисаіос, Іисус, фадіинос, міи... 'Isaiah, Jesus, insane man, to me'
• The suffix -іки
  • Гралїки, Сисілияніки... 'Greadian, Sicilian language'

Otherwise it is optional when there is и or і. Notice that each syllable has different one so it looks better and easier to read.

• Демїнос/Демйнос, Һйрмос/һїрмос, їмнос/ймнос... 'neither, hirmoss (a kind of a hymn in orthodox church), hymn'

When ІИ?

The digraph is a historical borrowing from Old Greek orthography. In Greek it is way more often used than in Greadian. There are a few situations when this digraph may occur, but sometimes it is better to avoid using this to make it easier to read.

NB! The digraph is always pronounced long [i:]!

• In the beginning of a word when the vowel [i] is long. In this case it looks very neat and is rather recommended to use.
  • іихос, Іисус, Іидра... 'son, Jesus, Hydra (an island in Greece)'
• In the middle of a word it may occur only in between of two consonants. Sometimes it looks neat when using the digraph, but I would highly recommend to avoid using it here.
  • Еніида... 'Allowance'
• In the end of a word when the word is not longer than one-two syllable(s).
  • Міи, псіи, аѓіи... 'to me, psi (the letter in Greek alphabet), devilish crime'

When О/Ө, when Ы/Ю?

Greadian was originally written with Greek alphabet, which has two different o's: ο (omicron) and ω (omega). In Greek the orthographical rules for these weren't that complicated as the ones for the i's.

Greadian Cyrillic alphabet has also the two o's: о, being equal to Greek omicron and ы to omega.

When О/Ө?

• In the beginning of a word word with an optional exception of some old prepositions, pronouns and particles. (because of Greek spelling)
• In the middle of a word with an optional exception of some very old prepositions, pronouns and particles. (because of Greek spelling)
• In the end of neuter nouns that end to -о and masculine adjectives without final -с.
• In the masculine noun, adjective and participle suffix -ос/өс.
• In the neuter article то.
• In the neuter suffix of verbs in active voice indicative.
• In another words, everywhere else but not when the ы and ю are obligated!

When Ы/Ю?

• In the beginning and middle of some old prepositions, pronouns and particles.
  • Ећы, сюн, апы, ипы, опы... etc... 'I, which, on, below, near'
• In the verb infinite article ты