Etrandish alphabet

The Etrandish alphabet is a variant of the High Elven alphabet used for the Etrandish language.

The letters
The dental fricatives are written as.

The front rounded vowels are written as. are written as, even though those letters stood for  in Middle High Elven, and also for the semivowel. Since stands both the vowel  and the semivowel, a special convention is used for  and  - the earlier would be written  , the latter as.

While in Middle High Elven, the preferred way to write was, in Etrandish, the preferred way is  (except in High Elven loanwords). The same way, the preferred way to write is  instead of, not just word-initially. Likewise, the preferred way to write may be  in Middle High Elven, as opposed to the Etrandish  (except in High Elven loanwords).

All in all, the spellings did not change from Middle Etrandish, except that several letters that formerly stood for (long) monophthongs now stand for diphthongs.

The velar nasal is written as.

Orthography
While Middle Etrandish orthography was relatively straightforward, Current Etrandish orthography on the other hand has evolved to include several peculiarities that make it not entirely coherent with the pronunciation.

Native Etrandish vocabulary vs High Elven loanwords
One of the big differences between the spelling of Native Etrandish vocabulary and High Elven loanwords is the rendering of the palatal sibilants :
 * in High Elven loanwords, they are spelled as (ci gi sci), just like in High Elven
 * in Native Etrandish words, they are primarily spelled as (ch j sh) - at least before  (a o u). Sometimes, the High Elven convention of using  (c g sc) before  (e i) is employed, especially word-medially and in personal names.
 * In Native Etrandish words - as well as loanwords from any language other than High Elven - (ch) is nearly always used for  - rarely for  or  -, but in High Elven loanwords, it is always used for.

Loanwords from Classical High Elven, Middle High Elven and contemporary High Elven are spelled exactly the way they would be in High Elven, and their pronunciations tend to be Etrandish approximations of what seems to be a mix between Classical High Elven and Middle high Elven:
 * (y ý) were pronounced as in Classical High Elven, exactly the same way they are pronounced in Etrandish now. Meanwhile, in Middle High Elven, they unrounded to, leading to a case where the Etrandish pronunciation is much more conservative and closer to the original.
 * (ae) is pronounced as in Etrandish, which is once again quite similar to the way it was pronounced in Classical High Elven, . In Middle High Elven, the digraph was pronounced as, which got raised to  in contemporary High Elven.
 * In Etrandish, monophthongizes to  before coda-position, leading to  (aer) being pronounced very similarly to the way it was in Middle High Elven.
 * In contemporary Etrandish, Middle Etrandish became  in both native Etrandish vocabulary and High Elven loanwords. Highly literate priests, erudites and aristocrats may use the conservative pronunciation  in High Elven loanwords.
 * In Classical High Elven, the digraphs (ph th ch) were pronounced  - they became  in Middle High Elven. In Etrandish, they are pronounced, because the digraph  (th) is also used for the dental fricatives.
 * In Etrandish, (gn) is pronounced as, while it is  in contemporary High Elven. That pronunciation is also used in Etrandish, but only in loanwords from Middle High Elven and contemporary High Elven - otherwise,  is spelled as  (ny), and  (gn) is pronounced as.

(ae) vs (ai)
In Etrandish, both digraphs stand for the same phoneme, the diphthong, and its monophthongized allophone before coda-position  and. However, they are not fully equivalent, as etymologically, they have different origins.
 * Old Etrandish and  merged as  in Middle Etrandish, but the differences between the two are still reflected in the spellings:
 * Native Etrandish words that had in Old Etrandish use  (ae)
 * Native Etrandish words that had in Old Etrandish use  (ai)
 * High Elven loanwords always use (ae)
 * Loanwords from Wood Elven and other languages generally use (ai)

(yu) vs (iu)
Since the letter (y) stands for both  and  in Etrandish, they have developed a peculiar way to spell  and  - spelling the earlier as  (yu) and the latter as  (iu).

and are spelled as  (yú) and  (iú).

The many ways to spell
Early Middle Etrandish did not have -  (aur) was pronounced,  (ár) was pronounced ,  (ál) was pronounced.

Around 200 AEKE, monophthongized to  before coda-position. Around 600 AEKE - when Middle Etrandish gave way to contemporary Etrandish - shifted to to, and former  became.

These shifts led to (aur ár ál alk) being pronounced as.

In during the transition between Old Etrandish and Middle Etrandish, Old Etrandish coda-position and  merged into a new. This shift happened strictly only in the environments where was followed by anything but a vowel: a consonant or a word boundary.

When Middle Etrandish would give way to Current Etrandish, in all variants - except the Northern dialect -, and  also collapsed into , but once again - only in positions where  is pronounced as , in other words: when  is followed by a consonant or a word boundary.

This however remains unreflected in the orthography. As such,  can be written as  (er ir yr ur), so long as it is at the end of a word or is before a consonant.

Former long vowels and diphthongs
Middle Etrandish had six phonemic long vowels and six phonemic diphthongs. Out of these, three long vowels and three diphthongs would merge: Middle Etrandish and  would merge into  in Current Etrandish.

As a result, a large number of digraphs would come to represent the same phoneme.

Input

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