Asfye Orthography

The romanisation of Standard Asfye is slightly strange for a lot of reasons: personal taste, the weird consonants and consideration to how an Asfye speaker would romanise if they weren't a fictional people who don't have accsess to a Latin alphabet. So for reference, I put together a guide to romanised Asfye since otherwise I'll feel bad throwing all the names at you lot!  

Consonants

ɲ = ñ	ŋ = ng	ɟ = gy	ɾ = r
x = kh	ɣ = q	ɕ = sh	ʑ = zh
tɕ = ch	dʑ, = j	j = y

 

Gemination

Asfye has consonant gemination, or cosonant doubling. Like most language's with gemination, I've chosen to represent gemination with 2 of the same consonant. However, I have quite a few digraphs and I think repeating diagraphs is ugly and i don't want to write ñ twice.  

ɟː = ggy	ɲː = nñ	ŋː = nng	xː = kkh
tɕː = cch	ɕː = ssh	ʑː = zzh

Vowels

This is where the weirdness truly begins, I apologise. What an Asfye speaker would consider short, long and overlong vowels is different to the linguist definitions of those words. To an Asfye speaker [a] is never short, so it is just represented as <a>, there's some history behind it within Standard Asfye, but that's not necessary right now.  

Example

Below is an example of Asfye text - an approximation of the 1st of the declaration of human rights.  

Tapyilav kavvéz fórom not derk yañlagyñé not gañílquñé.

[tapjɪlav kabɕeːdzo ɸuromlo nota derka jaŋʎagɲiː nota gaɲʎguɲiː]

Shugy ec ona not sovyó zo not zoyrjap h gyésúngaq ñé oshémaq selkhoq

[ɕʊɟ ɛc ɔna nɔt sɔvjo zɔ nɔt zɔjɾdʑap h ɟesuŋaɣ ɲe ɔɕemaɣ sɛlxɔɣ]