Re: Thagojian Alphabet

First, it should be noted that Thagojian is a dead language,
recovered largely from texts written in a variant of the
Coptic alphabet, as well as a very few much older texts in a
script that appears to be descended from cuneiform, but
which is not entirely understood. Thus, phonetic values are
"best guess" only, and some variance is found in the
phonetic transcription of different sources.

This table relies slightly on the use of a fixed-pitch font.

In the first column is the standard ASCIIfication of the
standard romanisation of each letter, followed by the
conventional phonetic reading of that letter, in X-Sampa. In
the ASCIIfication, the usual conventions apply: an single
quote after a letter should be read as an acute accent, and
a double quote should be read as a diaresis.

a   /A/
b   /b/
g   /g/
d   /d/
e   /e/
u   /u/
ty  /t_j/
e'  /E/
th  /T/
i   /i/
e"  /@/
k   /k/
l   /l/
m   /m/
n   /n/
n'  /N/
ky  /k_j/
o   /o/
p   /p/
s   /s/
lh  /K/
t   /t/
i"  /1/
ph  /f/
kh  /x/
py  /p_j/
o'  /O/
s'  /S/
h   /h/
q   /?/

Because of the existence in romanisation of digraphs that
consist of two characters which may also occur individually
or next to each other, there is scope for confusion. To
distinguish cases like {k}{h} from {kh}, an underdot is
placed below the second character of any potentially
ambiguous sequence. In ASCII, a period or hyphen preceeding
the second character is used, thus {mekhi} /'me.xi/ is not
the same as {mek-hi} /'mek.hi/.

Likewise, because of the existence of those same digraph
sequences (like {k}{h}), which occur naturally in Thagojian
text, modern-Greek-like fricative pronunciations are given
to the three letters represented by the letters used in
older Greek to represent aspirates -- {ph}, {th} and {kh}.

The characters {py}, {ty} and {ky} are written with symbols
used in Greek for /ps/, /z/ and /ks/, but since their
etymological source is generally a voiceless stop followed
by /i/ in Proto-Indo-European, it is likely that those three
characters represent palatalised consonants and not
sibilants.

Since fricatives can occur doubled intervocalically and
word-finally (but seemingly not word-initially), they might
be pronounced differently. The current accepted practice is
that initial fricatives are always voceless, non-doubled
intervocalic and final fricatives are voiced, and doubled
intervocalic and final fricatives are voiceless, thus
{lhadu} /'KA.du/, {n'e'the"} /'NE.D@/ and {qais's'a}
/'?Aj.SA/,

The letters {h} and {q} show good evidence of laryngeals in
PIE, as {h} occurs derived from H1 (E-colored laryngeal) in
PIE, and {q} occurs derived from H2 and H3 (A- and O-colored
laryngeals).

And that's about all I have in my brain right now without
getting into the mechanics of the language itself (i.e.
vowel harmony).


All feeedback welcome and encouraged,



Paul Bennett

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