#my orthography

[kriegsgeist]

My guide to understanding my alternative English orthography style

As suggested by the title, this post exists to explain why I do what I do, to teach what these various symbols and practices mean, and how/why I'm using them.

General Stuff

I'm not attempting to create a phonemic spelling alternative to standard English orthography. Some of my changes are purely cosmetic and I've kept many things the same as in standard English. For example, I've kept the "ou" in words like "thou" even though I think "au" would be better, as they do in German. This is because I think a total spelling conversion to a more phonemic style would take too much getting used to for the average reader, and I'm already asking for quite a lot as is. Some people might like it, but I'd like to make at least some attempt to meet people where they are, so I'd prefer not to make things even harder than they already are. Maybe someday I'll explore some more changes in that direction, but not yet.

I am not attempting a version of Anglish (A project that seeks to imagine what English might have looked like had the Norman Conquest not happened), though I am interested in Anglish, so I still use words of Latin and Greek origin, but much of what I do does take influence from much of the work done by Anglishers.

I would also like to clarify that this is very much simply a hobby of mine and I have no illusions of this being more important than it is. It's just for fun.

Old Letters

Æ/æ (Ash)

Ash is a letter used in Old English to represent the "a" sound found in words like "cat" (In General American English). It is also used in some older spellings of words of Latin or Greek origin. In the past I would use it liberally by simply replacing any instance of "a" whenever it made the "cat" sound, but now I generally only use it for words that derive from Old English words that used to use it or for words of Latin/Greek origin which used to be spelled with it.

Œ/œ (Ethel)

Ethel is a letter generally used in some words of French, Latin, or Greek origin. Though it is still used in French, it is only rarely used in Contemporary English. I cannot find any readily available histories about Ethel, but it does not appear to have been used too far back in the history of English. In my research, I've found that Ethel has been used in English with all sorts of words with many different kinds of pronunciations, so it would take a bit too long for me to go into detail about that, but generally when it appears in a word it is still recognizable, such as in "phœnix" (phoenix) or "œsophagus" (esophagus).

Ð/ð (Eth) and Þ/þ (Thorn)

Eth and Thorn are two letters used in Old English to represent a "th" sound. Historically, in Old English, they were used interchangeably with each other before Thorn eventually won out in popularity. There is a misconception that Thorn and Eth represent particular kinds of "th" sounds, but it appears that Thorn is generally preferred for initial instances of "th" while Eth is generally used elsewhere. There is also a misconception that in Modern Icelandic, Eth and Thorn supposedly take on unique sounds, but that isn't true for Icelandic either, but as I am not too well-versed on Icelandic, I will not go too much into detail there.

Ƿ/ƿ (Wynn)

Wynn is a letter used in Old English to represent a "w" sound. As some might know, the letter "w" didn't exist in the Latin alphabet until centuries after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, so before the introduction of "w" in English, Wynn was used. Obviously, Wynn looks a lot like a "p" in many typesets, so most people don't like it for that reason, but a few don't mind it.

Ȝ/ȝ (Yogh)

Yogh was used in Middle English to represent a few sounds, such as "g," "gh," and "y". It evolved from the Insular G (Ᵹ/ᵹ) which was used in the scripts used in Ireland and England. The letter survived a bit longer in Scots than English. I don't use it very often because in most typescripts it resembles the number 3, so whenever I do, I typically restrict its use to replacing the "gh" found in words like "enough" and "night," so for me it's purely a cosmetic spelling change rather than a change that represents a particular sound.

Shakespearian Stuff

Thou and Thee

The difference between thou and thee is basically the same as he and him. It's always "I see thee" and never "I see thou." Likewise, it is always "Thou seest me" and never "Thee seest me."

Verbs paired with thou always take either the -st or -est endings. For example, for present tense "Thou makest a sword" and for past tense "Thou didst make a sword." Another example, for present tense "Thou hast a sword" and for past tense "Thou hadst a sword."

For the verb "to be", the conjugation for thou is "thou art" for present tense and "thou wert" for past tense.

The -eth ending

The -eth ending is for third person verbs. For example, "He runneth."

Thy and Thine

Thy and thine are used like "your" and "yours". If a word begins with a vowel then you can use thine, such as in "thine eyes." If it doesn't, then you can use thy, such as in "thy sword." If it's a situation where you'd use "yours", such as in "It is yours" then you would say "It is thine."

Runes

I use the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc runic alphabet rather than the Younger Futhark or the Elder Futhark because I think it makes more sense to use an alphabet that was designed with English in mind rather than Old Norse. I generally restrict the use of runes to proper nouns, such as names and titles. If you want to learn more about how to use runes for Modern English, I recommend this guide here. This isn't an authoritative guide by any means, so you can always feel free to make changes. Please keep in mind that runes are not a 1:1 replacement of the Latin alphabet, so please don't make the mistake of assuming that you can just replace each letter of the alphabet with a corresponding rune, because it doesn't always work that way. You can get away with this for many letters but not all. For example, there is a specific rune for the "ing" sound, so you would use that rather than using three runes to represent all three of those letters.

Roman Numerals

I use Roman Numerals whenever I have to use a number. There are many guides to Roman Numerals available on the internet already so I won't link any particular one.

Other Changes

Replacing C with K

I will generally do this whenever C is making the same type of sound as K. If a word has CK in it, I use two Ks. This is because most modern Germanic languages prefer K over C and my guess is that English probably would have followed the same trend had the Norman Conquest not happened, and also because I think K looks cooler than C.

Replacing S with Z

I do this whenever S is making the same type of sound as Z. Unlike English, Dutch and German do a bit more in their languages to make a distinction between these two sounds. Obviously the Z in German is used differently than in English and Dutch, but, still, German recognizes the differences between these two types of sounds and makes an effort to deal with that in their orthography. Another big reason for using Z is, of course, because I think Z looks cool and I think it deserves to be used more.

Writing "Of" as "Ov"

I do this because "of" has a "V" sound, not an "F" sound, and, most importantly, because it looks cooler.

Grave accent

The grave accent is rarely used in English, but occasionally used to indicate that a usually silent vowel is meant to be pronounced. For example, in the word "looked" you usually would not pronounce the "e", but if it is spelled with the grave accent, as in "lookèd", this indicates that the "e" is meant to be pronounced.

[forgettable-au]

Sans do you ever feel that something might be missing?

Maybe he felt like that at some point, maybe for a long time. In the present, I think he's made some kind of peace with it.

Also, I really like the ask blog format, but I don't really mean this to be an ask blog.

So when writing questions, try to refer them to me instead of the characters. That way, they don't have to break the fourth wall lmao. I really wanted to answer this one tho

-

[starry-bi-sky]

DPXDC CFAU Headcanon: Ghostspeak Edition

Ghosts in the Infinite Realms who saw Jason and Danny together called them "luzdra", a term in ghost speak that directly translates into the words "shared soul". It's literal definition is; "two ghosts with a bond so deep that it was as if they had split their souls in half and given one to the other", but in general it just means two ghosts with a profound, indescribable bond.

Luzdrus is the singular form of the word, and refers to only one ghost in the bond. While "luzdra" is plural and either refers to both of them together, or the relationship as a whole. It depends on the context of the conversation and who they're saying it to.

There is no romantic, platonic, or familial connotation behind the word. It just means "someone who shares a deep bond with someone" and can be between anyone.

It also does not mean soulmate, and if you say that you'll be corrected. Soulmates implies that their bond was destined by the universe, luzdra are two people who developed and built that bond themselves. It's a relationship forged between two (or more) people.

Some of Danny's rogues -- like Kitty and Johnny, who might've seen the two together and are possibly luzdra themselves -- still call him 'luzdrus' even after Jason's disappearance from the Zone. Danny doesn't know how to feel about it.

[dedalvs]

Lexember (December 10th)

Okay, so this glyph is elilla "honey", and I guess I'll have to talk about this. There's this joke on The Simpsons where Homer is writing up invitations to his barbecue. They look like this:

The image is an outline of a pig, and the text is "Come to Homer's BBBQ. The extra B is for BYOBB." Lisa reads this aloud then asks homer, "What's that extra B for?" Homer's response: "That was a typo."

Back to Valyrian, elilla derives from the word for "bee" ēs. Ēs is irregular, as its stem is actually el-, so, for example, the plural of ēs "bee" is elossa "'bees". This is a common enough phenomenon in High Valyrian. Essentially, you had a stage where it was *els in the nominative singular, and the cluster simplified, resulting in a long vowel. (If anything, it's odd that "bee" is ēs rather than ēz, but we'll set the aside for the moment.) Elilla is a kind of derivation of ēs. The stem el- is extended, giving us elilla. Why -illa? No reason. It's a kind of reduplication. That extension, though, was reanalyzed as a suffix, and that suffix became rather productive, resulting in resultatives ending in -illa, hence hūra "moon" and hūrilla "moonlight".

Now, the trick here is all these words are aquatic. Aquatic words usually end in -r and have their own declension patterns. This one ends in -a. Fair enough. You might expect, though, that if it was aquatic, it would follow the declension patternj of aquatic nouns. But no. It doesn't. These -illa words end in -a, like class I lunar nouns, and they also decline like class I lunar nouns. The only thing that tells you they're aquatic is they trigger aquatic agreement.

Okay, so why are these -illa nouns aquatic? Because elilla is aquatic.

But why is elilla aquatic?

Truthfully, elilla is aquatic because it represents honey, which is classified as a liquid. That's the only reason it's aquatic. I also thought there would be a number of these nouns that looked like one class but triggered the agreement of another class.

But then I didn't add more.

So it's just these. It's the noun elilla and every other noun ending in -illa that looks like one gender/declension class but declines like a different one.

Twelve years on, I don't hate it, exactly, but I also hate it. And we're stuck with it.

Anyway, happy Community Christmas!

[littlefankingdom]

I love that Damian is named Damian. Let me explain why.

The name Damian comes from the Greek, δαμάζω (damazo), which means "to tame, to conquer, to vanquish, to master, to overcome, to dominate", but can also mean "the untamable". Already, this is great. Damian is the heir of the League of Assassins and the Bat, he is meant to conquer all, to master everything, to dominate above all. He is meant to be untamable.

But also, the word "damazo" comes from Damia, one of the names of the goddess Cybele, a goddess that is associated with wild nature or viewed as Mother Nature. And the Al Ghul are all about nature.

Finally, "Damian", and its other forms, is a name that has become associated with the word "demon". I think this is probably why he was named this, because he is the grandson of the Demon's Head, and Damian = demon. Well, about the word "demon": it comes from the Greek δαίμων, daímôn, which is a term associated with some divinities. These divinities aren't evils, they are mostly (from the ones I have encountered being called demons) associated with the afterlife or darkness, but they aren't evil. The Furies, goddesses of vengeance and justice that go after guilty folks to punish them before their death, are called "demons" sometimes. Thanatos, god of death, is called "demon" sometimes. The negative connotation comes from the Abrahamic faiths who villainized aspects of the polytheist beliefs, so their believers would drop them (in polytheist practices, every god exists, others just use a different name or view them a different way, which is fine because they are gods, and you cannot as a mortal define. Which means that polytheist cultures don't villainize other gods they don't know or don't pray to, you can join in the celebrations without renouncing to the gods you honor. Monotheism cannot have you do that.) Hell is the example of that. Hell was simply the realm of the dead, but the Abrahamic faiths (Christianity is the guilty one here) painted it as the "bad realm of the dead" (the division of the afterlife was done centuries after Christianity was created and so the Church could hold more controls over its believers). Another one is Lilith, who was a Mesopotamian goddess also referred to as a demon, so what did the Abrahamic faiths did? They made her a creature of evil. All of this talk because Ra's Al Ghul, when he named himself that, did so to criticize religions. It was all about how demons, evil spirits and creatures are something created by religious authorities so they can target and harm people they don't like, and could harm their power. So, to finish, it makes little to no sense in my opinion for Damian to be displeased with being named or associated with demons. Because the ideology that demons are evil is associated with Abrahamic faiths, and that's not what the Al Ghul believe, they cannot have taught him that. What I'm saying is that when you write any of the Al Ghul associating demons with evil, you are looking at their family from the pov of a culture who depends heavily on an Abrahamic faith, and not from their own culture and ideologies, which are that all this religion stuff is bs. They take pride in being associated with demons, not because demons are evil entities harming humankind, but because demons are something that the authority in place hates.

Anyway, Talia cooked when she named her son Damian.

[presidenthades]

Trying to distract myself from US election results by working on my crafting. I’m planning another bind of Daemon’s Handbook, so I’m practicing spraying edges and stenciling High Valyrian glyphs on a test book.

The glyphs, if I translated correctly, should say “Daemon Targaryen’s Book of Help to Manage Daughters of Marriage.”

If any fellow HV nerds see a translation mistake, please tell me so I can fix it before I repeat on the real thing!

[ahalliance]

qétoiles n qbagz’ convo about his code arm + fun banter from last sunday :] english subs + transcript below da cut

[Video transcript:

Etoiles: But yesterday when he [Forever] talked to me, he was so frightened, basically he was like, ‘But one day won’t you lose your shit and want to kill the Eggs with the Code, and everything?’ Though I was telling him, ‘But the fact is, I know the Code very well’—

Baghera: Oh, so you told him you joined—?

Etoiles: No, no, no, not at all. It’s just that he has these assumptions that I’m really allied to the Code because—

Baghera: I think it’s due to your Code tattoo, also, it gives off the impression you’re in the process of transforming into a Code, Etoiles, let’s not lie.

Etoiles: That’s it, that’s it. But, basically I told him that I’ve had it since—

Baghera: But you don’t give a shit? You’re taking it well?

Etoiles: Well, yeah, I don’t give a shit because I know he’ll never beat me. Basically I—

Baghera: But you don’t give a shit about the code literally popping up over your body?

Etoiles: Well, yeah, because it’s a part of me now. It’s normal.

Baghera: How?

Etoiles: Well, after— after fighting someone 17 times, you start— you start creating links. But those links—

Baghera: But— you know that’s not how things work. Like— look, we cross paths. Right now we’re crossing paths. You see? We’re crossing paths. I kick your ass. Like, for free. You see? I see you, I’m like, ‘Bro, I don’t like his face,’ so I kick your ass.

Etoiles: But no! Because if you tell me ‘Good fight’ at the end—

Baghera: I see you again— wait, I’m not finished. I see you again like 12 times, and I tell myself, ‘Hey, I’ll do it again,’ I kick your ass again. After a while, Rayou, I won’t get diabetes!

Etoiles: Well, maybe you will, huh.

Baghera: Yes, but it’s not— it doesn’t work, like— there’s no correlation, you see!

Etoiles: You know you won’t have Langerhans cells anymore, you know, it’s possible.

Baghera: But— no— what I mean is— Etoiles! That’s now how it works! It’s worrisome! It’s normal for us to worry!

Etoiles: Well, yeah, but, uhhh. Basically, you’re all used to talking with me on the island. And you understand very well that there’s nothing able to corrupt me.

Baghera: That we don’t know, Etoiles! Because— if it’s— I know that your morality, and your enormous brain, and your big body, won’t get corrupted. But if there’s suddenly— well, what I mean is that we don’t know what all the possible systems of manipulation on the island are.

Etoiles: It’s true. No, it’s true. But for the moment I’m doing well.

Baghera: Yeah, well, so much the better. But—

Etoiles: For the moment I’m doing well!

Baghera: If you feel any change, Etoiles, mention it, okay?

Etoiles: Oh, I’ll talk about it. But for the time being I’m doing very well.

Baghera: So I can understand peoples’ fear upon seeing you LITERALLY transform into a Code and who tell themselves, ‘Oh, strange, maybe there’s a thing with the Codes.’

Etoiles: It’s true but who can better know the dangers of the Code than someone who’s confronted it his whole life? Instead of someone who—

Baghera: I’m well aware.

Etoiles: No but it’s— it’s— it’s for that reason that I told Forever. I totally understand the fear and everything, it’s normal. You see a dude turning into a Code, you ask yourself, ‘What’s the guy who sent him doing?’

Baghera: Well, yeah, there you go.

Etoiles: Like, ‘Who sent him?’

Baghera: But you don’t feel any different? Nothing?

Etoiles: Absolutely not, no. Everything is going well. I still hate the Code whenever I see him, I still want to kick his ass. Everything’s fine. Even if right now I want him—

Baghera: But you join up with them when he suggests it, yeah. Well, it’s to get the shield back.

Etoiles: It was just for the shield, believe me. Believe me, if I run into them again- if I run into them again and they don’t offer me things to save the Eggs and everything, it’s goodbye. And considering what I’ve prepared— considering what I’ve prepared, I objectively think that 5 Codes won’t be enough to kill me. There’ll need to be 10 of them.

Baghera: They might bring 10, huh.

Etoiles: Yeah, well, then again, we have time.

Baghera: Well, in any case, they don’t want to kill you anymore since you’re working with them.

Etoiles: Well, in fact, we’re not really— actually— I don’t really know what he’s thinking. Because the last time we talked I told them, ‘But if you lay even a finger on the Eggs, I’ll kick your fucking asses, you sacks of shit.’ And they left, and they didn’t answer me.

Baghera: Then again, they’re a bit cryptic, the Codes, you know.

Etoiles: Yeah, but normally they— I managed to talk with them a bit, so— so I don’t know. Personally, I’m telling you—

Baghera: Okay, no, what I mean is that I understand why when people see you they think, ‘Maybe it’s possible he’s getting a little bit corrupted by the Codes.’

Etoiles: No but yeah, yeah, I totally get it. But honestly, never. Never in a million years.

Baghera: I believe you! I trust you. But if there’s— if once you feel any difference or something of the sort, you mention it, okay? To whomever you want, but you mention it.

Etoiles: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah (10000x)

Baghera: You know you’re not very reassuring when you say that, as an answer.

Etoiles: That’s true. But I’m telling you there’s no problem. And— actually. The moment I start feeling strange, I’ll put numbers. And so you’ll have to come get me.

Baghera: Okay, okay. I’ll remember that.

Etoiles: Just that. But I— I— yeah. I whisper in the Code’s ear.

Baghera: The day you start talking to me in binary, there’ll be an issue, basically.

Etoiles: The day I say, ‘10001’, that’s it. But actually, I’m telling you, I could never be corrupted because I have AVAST, my wool block which blocks viruses.

Baghera: That’s real, that’s real.

end video transcript.]

[labialockercolourised]

I must speak my truth. I get the "Phil has an English degree lol" jokes, I really do...but every time I see them it has the same impact as "you're a linguist, how many languages do you speak?" And as someone who primarily works in phonetics, y'all, it made my spelling worse

[front-facing-pokemon]

[coquelicoq]

third person singular present indicative of vaincre/convaincre my beloved. yeah sure just end in a fucking letter c of all things. what the hell, live a little! most badass french verb form of all time perhaps?

[asterlae]

The tragic lovers are back :D

I have a lot of lore for them, specially for Wolfwood uwu

[istherewifiinhell]

once again im asking if we can abolish the "dg" sound. i hate it. its useless. get real. ur just an evil j sound and i hate u.

[chicago-geniza]

I don't want a modern lesbian carabiner I want Chatelaine Keys. My brain went "what are Victorian housekeeper belt keys called" girl it's chatelaine it is the same word as the proprietress slash hostess of the stately home, you're not THAT far gone to fairyland, yeesh

[auroral-melody]

kids these days dont know what it was like to put 2 spaces after a period.

[dedalvs]

Salt! Gift of the gods! Pure as silver, it puts the fine in finance! The Valyrian word for "salt" is lopon, but it's likely to show up as lopor, in the collective. Enjoy this gift of salt! Let us take some time today to celebrate salt and all it has done for our dried meats and caramels!

[bioluminescent-fungus]

bicom ongofrnibl. ġūs old inglisċ orþagrafi