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Alphabet
| Letter | IPA | Example | Respelling | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Аа | /ɑ/ | father | фаҙэр | This one was a pretty obvious choice. I could've assigned this to /æ/, since it's the most common a-type sound in English, but /ɑ/ is closest to the value that this letter usually represents. |
| Бб | /b/ | bit | біт | This b-shaped letter makes the /b/ sound, unlike the other b-shaped letter. |
| Вв | /v/ | vase | вейс | People only familiar with the Latin alphabet may be confused here, but yes, that is the way /v/ is usually written in Cyrillic, and yes, it does go third in the alphabet. |
| Гг | /ɡ/ | gun | гын | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. |
| Дд | /d/ | dome | доўм | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. |
| Ее | /ɛ/ | bed | бед | This one may seem somewhat confusing to people familiar with the variant of Cyrillic used in Russian, which assigns this the value /je/. However, languages like Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, and Ukrainian all use this letter for a plain /e/ or /ɛ/ instead. Because of this I decided to give it the value /ɛ/ here, which is the closest English equivalent. |
| Жж | /ʒ/ | treasure | трежэр | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. |
| Зз | /z/ | zero | зироў | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. |
| Ҙҙ | /ð/ | this | ҙіс | This letter may look unfamiliar to many people who are otherwise familiar with Cyrillic, It does exist though, and is used in the Bashkir language for the sound /ð/, which is the same value it's being assigned here. |
| Ии | /i/ | east | ист | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. |
| Йй | /j/, /ɪ̯/ |
yellow | йелоў | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. Its construction is fairly straightforward: it's the semivowel form of [i], so it's written as [i] with a breve. The only thing vaguely controversial about it is its placement in the alphabet; languages like Ukrainian, which also use ⟨і⟩, place ⟨й⟩ after ⟨і⟩ in the alphabet, instead of before it. I decided to switch these around though. It feels more natural to have ⟨й⟩ appear directly after its breveless equivalent. It's also used in several digraphs. More information about this can be found in the table below. |
| Іі | /ɪ/ | dig | діг | This one definitely requires some explaining. First off, yes, this is a real Cyrillic letter, and not just one imported from Latin either. It's historically related to Greek iota, with ⟨и⟩ descending from eta. Most Cyrillic alphabets have gotten rid of it in favor of ⟨и⟩, but languages like Ukrainian, which distinguish between two types of i-sounds, use both letters. Now, people familiar with Ukrainian may be raising their eyebrows right now. See, Ukrainian actually uses these two letters for the opposite sounds. Ukrainian ⟨и⟩ is pronounced /ɪ/, and ⟨і⟩ is used for /i/. But don't worry, this is attested! Kazakh uses these letters in this way. |
| Кк | /k/ | cat | кәт | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. |
| Лл | /l/ | left | лефт | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. |
| Мм | /m/ | milk | мілк | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. |
| Нн | /n/ | nest | нест | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. Similar to ⟨в⟩, people only familiar with the Latin alphabet may be confused here, but this letter always makes the [n] sound, never [h]. |
| Ңң | /ŋ/ | sing | сиң | This letter is not used in any Slavic Cyrillic alphabets, but it is used in many Turkic languages, usually for the sound [ŋ]. |
| Оо | /ɔ/ | thought | ҫот | This letter is similar to ⟨е⟩, in that it's usually used for the sound /o/, but I moved that to /ɔ/ here. Of course, if your dialect merges the vowel /ɔ/ with that of /ɑ/, like my own does, you don't have to use this letter outside of digraphs. Feel free to replace it with ⟨а⟩ instead. |
| Пп | /p/ | paste | пейст | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. |
| Рр | /ɹ/ | reach | рич | Yes, once again, this is the usual way of writing r in Cyrillic. It does not make the [p] sound, that one's covered by the letter above. It still feels kind of strange to use this letter for anything other than an alveolar trill, but its still clearly the best choice here. |
| Сс | /s/ | sun | сын | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. Like quite a few letters mentioned above, English speakers may be tempted to read this as /k/ in some scenarios, but it always makes the sound /s/. |
| Ҫҫ | /θ/ | think | ҫіңк | This letter works similar to the ⟨ҙ⟩ shown higher on the page. It's also used in Bashkir. |
| Тт | /t/ | time | тайм | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. |
| Уу | /u/ | food | фуд | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. |
| Ўў | /w/, /ʊ̯/ |
west | ўест | This letter is pretty uncommon across Cyrillic alphabets, but its used in a few languages, including exactly one Slavic language: Belarusian. It also makes sense symmetrically with ⟨й⟩: и is to й as у is to ў. Similarly to that letter, it is also used as the non-syllabic closing element /ʊ̯/ in diphthongs. |
| Ұұ | /ʊ/ | book | бұк | This letter is actually the barred version of a similar letter used in other Cyrillic alphabets. I went with exclusively the barred version instead though, because of the fact that it's actually used for /ʊ/ in a natural language, specifically Kazakh. |
| Фф | /f/ | knife | найф | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. |
| Хх | /h/ | happy | хәпи | This letter usually represents /x/ in most variations of Cyrillic. I decided to go with /h/ here though, as English has no /x/ (in most dialects, anyway.) The alternative would be something like ⟨Һһ⟩, which I am not a fan of aesthetically. |
| Чч | /tʃ/ | choice | чойс | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. |
| Џџ | /dʒ/ | jump | џымп | This letter isn't used in most Slavic Cyrillic alphabets, but those that do (like Macedonian, use it for this sound or something very close to it. |
| Шш | /ʃ/ | shake | шейк | This is the value usually assigned to this letter in most Cyrillic alphabets. |
| Ыы | /ʌ/ | love | лыв | This letter is only used for stressed /ʌ/ here, never unstressed /ə/! These two phonemes can be easily analyzed as different variants of the same sound, but writing them differently means that I don't have to mark English's phonemic stress, which is very convenient since that is something I don't want to do. I believe there is some language that uses ⟨ы⟩ for schwa (in a language where it's a full vowel and therefore has more in common with English /ʌ/ than /ə/), but I forget what language it is. |
| Ээ | /ə/ | about | эбаўт | Unlike most of the other choices I made for this orthography, this one isn't attested in any language as far as I know. Despite this, I felt it fit here. (Update: I've found out that it is attested in Moldovan.) |
| Юю | /ju/ | cute | кют | Traditional variations on Cyrillic have a whole lot of so-called "iotated vowels", which basically just means vowels starting with an inherent /j/. For my English orthography, I decided to use only ⟨ю⟩. English has whole lot of /ju/, this is because of an earlier sound shift that turned an old /eu/ diphthong into /ju/. It's worth noting, though, that all sequences of /ju/ will be written this way, not just ones descended from the earlier /eu/. For example, the pronoun "you" will be written ⟨ю⟩. Similar to the principle used with ⟨а/о⟩, if your dialect yod-drops before alveolar consonants, feel free to use ⟨у⟩ in those words. |
| Әә | /æ/ | cat | кәт | If this choice confuses you, don't worry. It might seem a little strange, but despite the fact that this Cyrillic letter both closely resembles and is related to the character schwa, its most common pronunciation in most languages that use it is, in fact, /æ/. Because English has the sound /æ/, it's the logical choice to represent this letter with, despite how unintuitive it may seem if you're not familiar with this particular Cyrillic letter. |
Digraphs
| Digraph | IPA | Example | Respelling | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ай, ай | /aɪ/ | night | найт | Not much to note here. |
| Аў, аў | /aʊ/ | house | хаўс | It's potentially worth noting that most modern dialects say this diphthong closer to [æʊ], but this diphthong is written this way despite this. |
| Ей, ей | /eɪ/ | make | мейк | This alphabet follows the principal from Tangerian: /eɪ/ /oʊ/ are written as /ɛ/ /ɔ/ plus a closing element. |
| Оў, оў | /oʊ/ | throw | ҫроў | See above. |
| Ой, ой | /ɔɪ/ | noise | нойз | Not much to note here. |
| Ар, ар | /ɑɹ/ | car | кар | If your dialect merges this phoneme with /ɑ/, feel free to write these the same way. |
| Ер, ер | /ɛɹ/ | chair | чер | This spelling, similar to ⟨аў⟩, is used regardless of actual pronunciation, unless this phoneme is merged with another. (If you realize this as [eə] or [ɛː] you still spell it this way.) |
| Ир, ир | /ɪɹ/ | clear | клир | This works the same as the rest of the rhotic diphthongs, non-rhotic dialects still spell it with the ⟨р⟩ unless it is merged with an actual separate phoneme. |
| Ор, ор | /ɔɹ/ | north | норҫ | If your dialect merges this phoneme with /ɔ/, feel free to write these the same way. |
| Ур, ур | /ʊɹ/ | poor | пур | As far as I know, most American dialects (including my own) get rid of /ʊɹ/, replacing it with either /ɔɹ/ or /ɜɹ/, depending on the word. (It's what makes the "and don't call me Shirley" joke work.) Like the above, feel free to replace this spelling with however you pronounce the individual words. |
| Юр, юр | /jʊɹ/ | cure | кюр | This one, similar to the regular usage of ⟨ю⟩, represents a historical /eur/ sequence that has since merged with /j/ plus the phoneme /u/. In this case, the /ur/ merged with the /ʊɹ/ phoneme shown above, and therefore has undergone the same split into either /jɔɹ/ or /jɜɹ/. One of the disadvantages of my dialect is that since this alphabet lacks letters for either /jɔ/ or /jʌ/, this sequence of phonemes must be written with three separate letters. This is not extremely bad, as it can easily be analyzed as three underlying sounds, but it is still less convenient than the simpler ⟨юр⟩. If your dialect preserves this "phoneme", enjoy it! Similar to the rule with ⟨юр⟩, all sequences of /jʊɹ/ will be written this way, not just ones descended from the earlier /eur/. For example, the pronoun "your" is written ⟨юр⟩ (or ⟨йор⟩ in my own dialect). |
| Ыр, ыр | /ɜɹ/ | bird | бырд | This sequence of sounds is written as if it's /ʌ/ plus /ɹ/, the same as it is in Tangerian. It must be written with the ⟨р⟩, even if it's pronounced as [ɜ]. The ⟨р⟩ can only be omitted if the sound is merged with /ʌ/. |
| Эр, эр | /əɹ/ | father | фаҙэр | This sequence of sounds is written as if it's /ə/ plus /ɹ/, the same as it is in Tangerian. Unlike the sound above, merging /əɹ/ with the non-rhotic /ə/ is actually quite common. The ⟨р⟩ can be omitted in these circumstances. |
Note 1: Conditional Allophony
One major idea of this spelling system is that things can be spelled however you pronounce them. To demonstrate this, I will give some examples from my own dialect (all of these can be seen in the text sample below). My dialect has the cot-caught merger, so I spell both words as ⟨кат⟩. Similarly, I also merge pin and pen, so they will both be spelled ⟨пін⟩. I also have quite a bit of pre-nasal tensing, especially before /ŋ/, "bang", "sing" and "man" are pronounced [beiŋ], [siŋ] and [meən]. These first two cause the vowel to split and merge with a different vowel, so they are written differently (this is why the word "language" is spelled ⟨лейңгўіџ⟩ in the sample below), but the third does not. My dialect of English has no /eə/ phoneme, the pronunciation of [eə] only occurs before /m/ and /n/ where /æ/ would usually occur. Because of this, [eə] can still be thought of as a realization of /æ/, and so is still written ⟨ә⟩. This is the general rule of thumb for both this system and any other English reforms that have been created by me. It's important to emphasize, though, that these are just examples from my own dialect, and not the only ones that can be done. Another example is the trap-bath split, where words like bath would be spelled ⟨баҫ⟩.
Note 2: Dialectal Phonemes
The thing about the rule above is that sometimes sounds do show up that aren't predictable in their realizations. That is, they don't only occur in conditions where other sounds would be expected to occur but don't. They can show up in any position (or at least most of them), and therefore have to be thought of as phonemes in their own right. For cases like these, the only sensible thing to do is to create a new way of writing these sounds. This section is for adressing a few of these.
The British /ɒ/ Phoneme
One thing I'm sure a few of you have noticed already is that the charts above are completely missing one phoneme, namely /ɒ/. This phoneme is present in a majority of British dialects, but it is completely absent from American English. Despite this, it's fairly common in Recieved Pronunciation, and it deserves its own letter. The letter that I've chosen for this vowel is the Cyrillic barred o, ⟨Өө⟩. For example, the word "lot" would be spelled ⟨лөт⟩. This only applies for speakers who distinguish this vowel from the ones in both "thought" and "father". It is its own letter in the alphabet, and gets its own position, between О and П. The reason I mention it here and not in the chart bove is because this specific version of the alphabet is intentionally "biased" toward General American. I created this script for my own use, and while I am extremely
| +0 | +1 | +2 | +3 | +4 | +5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00+ | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| 10+ | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | A | B |
| 20+ | C | D | E | F | G | H |
| 30+ | I | J | K | L | M | N |
| 40+ | O | P | Q | R | S | T |
| 50+ | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |