Transliteration of Dwarven into the High Elven script

Transliteration of Dwarven into the High Elven script date back to almost as early as the existence of the High Elven alphabet itself, but no standardized system for it was developed until centuries after the Etrandish annexation of Dwarven clans.

Early attempts
Prior to the various later attempts to losslessly map the Dwarven language's phonology to the High Elven alphabet, most early "attempts" did not even attempt to be a lossless and accurate transliteration of Dwarven, but were instead highly defective systems, heavily biased based on the transliterator's native Etrandish or High Elven phonology: mapping the vowels and consonants of Dwarven to the transliterator's native tongue was a lossy process, made even lossier by the fact that even for the Etrandish and High Elven languages, the High Elven script is defective and has some ambiguoties. As an example, distinctiosn between and  were typically completely lost, as were distinctions between  and,  and , etc.

Following the Etrandish annexation of Dwarven clans, the Etrandish authorities did not try to force their writing system on the Dwarves, knowing full well how much backlash such an attempt would cause. However, still needing to keep a tab on all the clans for administrative reasons, the Etrandish made attempts to create a system of transliterating Dwarven names, but they all had the aforementioned shortcomings. When a Dwarf said, an Etrandish-speaker wrote it down as and would subsequently pronounce it as , which the Dwarves would misinterprete as , causing much confusion. A much better system was needed, but it wouldn't come until much later, until a Dwraf anmed Thashtrim Korth came up with.

For the time being, the Etrandish gave up on accurately transliterating Dwarven, and instead turned to translation, setting up a registry system for the clans, where all clans must have both a Dwarven name and an Etrandish name, and both names would have to be unique: two clans were not allowed to have the same name, and only the older one was allowed to keep their old name. If neither clan could prove seniority over the other, both were forced to add a prefix or postfix to their names. This wasn't a very popular system, but it stuck.

The Korth-system
Developed by a Dwarf named Thashtrim Korth in the early 6th century AEKE, the Korth-system sought to overcome limitations of the earlier lossy transliterations, he took a system based on the Middle Etrandish orthography, and augmented it with various digraphs to remove ambiguities and make it possible to transliterate text back into the Dwarven script without relying on context. As such, the system he came up with would map the Dwarven phonology to following letters and digraphs:
 * The neutral vowels would be written respectively as  after Light consonants,  after Dark consonants. Just like in the Etrandish orthography,  is written as  instead of  or.
 * The Light vowels would be written respectively as . Just like in the Etrandish orthography,  is written as  instead of.
 * The Dark vowels would be written respectively as.
 * The foreign vowels would be written respectively as  when necessary, though Korth recommended spelling loanwords - especially loanwords of Etrandish origins - the way they were spelled in the source language.
 * The Light consonants would be written respectively .  would also be written as  where it was written in the Dwarven alphabet as . Additionally,  would be written as  after consonants, to avoid confusion.  is written as  before front  ,  before.
 * The Dark consonants would be written respectively .  would also be written as  where it was written in the Dwarven alphabet as . For aesthetic reasons,  are written as  before a front vowel,  otherwise.
 * Writing both as  as  would not cause ambiguity, because they could not occour in the same environments (the first only before light vowels, the second only before dark vowels), and the neutral vowels would be already disambiguated to make the context (light vs dark) clear.

Korth also kept potential Etrandish mispronounciations in mind when designing his system, trying to make sure to simultaneously ensure the unambiguous representation of all Dwarven phonemes (to the point of being able to easaily transliterate back to the Dwarven script) as well as the best possible approximation of the authentic Dwarven pronounciation by foreign (namely Etrandish and High Elven) speakers, though clearly prioritizing the earlier, realizing that both languages had a more limited phonemic inventory compared to Dwarven, e.g. habitually conflating with.

After Korth
Korth's system did not catch on immediately - it was criticized for being clunky and clumsy, for being unnecessarily complex, full of rules difficult to remember, eccentric orthographic conventions, etc. Thus, for the time being, literal translating remained the preferred alternative to transliterating names, and when transliteration was absolutely necessary, the old defective systems remained the gold standard until the 8th century AEKE, when the re-centralizing Etrandish government decided to streamline the administration process. They embraced the Korth-system, abolished the obligation for Dwarven clans to have two names, and made all administrators - as well as clan-leaders - learn this way of writing.

Suddenly, the "clunky and clumsy" Korth-system was being praised making it easier for Etrandish-appointed Human administrators to learn Dwarven, as well as for Dwarves to learn Etrandish. Nevertheless, some Dwarves protested in preference for the old system, fearing that this new development would lead to their cultural assimilation. Their fears were not unfounded, as King Calder I of Etrand briefly banned the public practice of the Dwarven religion, and went on a campaign to promote the Etrandish alphabet, no doubt facing a great backlash. His de facto successor as the king of Etrand - as well as predecessor as the administrator of the Autonomous Dwarven Region - Ladislaus Londbert actually learned both the Dwarven language and the Dwarven script, despite having no need or obligation do it, which much of the Dwarven population already being bilingual in Etrandish and familiar with the Korth-system at the time.

Bryant undid Calder's restrictive actions, confirming the autonomy of the region, the sanctity of the Dwarven religion, and the importance of the Dwarven script. Nevertheless, the Korth-system remained in use, and remains in use to this day, with most public buildings in Zorod Koldó im Neuna and Zorod Naugi im Pkhaur having bilingual Etrandish-Dwarven signs, with the any Dwarven placenames or personal names transliterated using the Korth-system on the Etrandish-language sign.

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