Zompist Bboard Again

A quickie: outside of Polynesian languages, which orthographies come closest to being truly "phonemic" using letters only without digraphs or diacritics, assuming this is a meaningful question?

I can't point you at a good example in the Latin alphabet because most languages have more phonemes than the basic Latin alphabet has letters, or would require to assign outlandish values to the letters, or both. Georgian, which has its own alphabet, has a pretty phonemic orthography without either digraphs or diacritics.

Also, you are using the wrong case in the subject line - de governs the ablative, not the genitive. And orthographia is feminine, not masculine (and "orthographius" doesn't exist). So the correct title would be De Orthographiis Phonemicis.

alice wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 2:31 pm A quickie: outside of Polynesian languages, which orthographies come closest to being truly "phonemic" using letters only without digraphs or diacritics, assuming this is a meaningful question?

Why woud you do such a thing?

When a writing system is newly created, it's usually pretty phonemic. Early Latin, early Hankul, Biblical Hebrew, Classical Sanskrit. There are always some quirks, but as I hope you realize, "phonemic" has a lot of wiggle room. There are allophonic variations; scripts may choose not to reprsesent certain distinctions; different dialects exist; languages change quickly; borrowings introduce complications; people often prefer morphophonemic spellings.

French orthography is pretty good. I mean, pretty good for 12th century French.

I'm also hoping you're not asking for a phonetic script. If you are, your penance is to memorize the 50-page section on sandhi in Whitney's Sanskrit grammar.

zompist wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 2:53 pm I'm also hoping you're not asking for a phonetic script. If you are, your penance is to memorize the 50-page section on sandhi in Whitney's Sanskrit grammar.

I was going to say, e.g. modern Greenlandic orthography is pretty phonetic but is not phonemic (as it includes things like allophonic vowel lowerings adjacent to uvulars).

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 2:55 pm

zompist wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 2:53 pm I'm also hoping you're not asking for a phonetic script. If you are, your penance is to memorize the 50-page section on sandhi in Whitney's Sanskrit grammar.

I was going to say, e.g. modern Greenlandic orthography is pretty phonetic but is not phonemic (as it includes things like allophonic vowel lowerings adjacent to uvulars).

Annoyingly, it marks ⟨o~u and e~o⟩ but doesn’t distinguish the two ⟨a⟩s. And on the other hand, it over-distinguishes by additionally marking the former uvular clusters ⟨rC⟩ which have turned into geminates, such that ⟨-erC- -orC-⟩ are doubly distinguished from ⟨-iCC- -uCC-⟩. Seems to work well enough in practice, though.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 3:24 pm And on the other hand, it over-distinguishes by additionally marking the former uvular clusters ⟨rC⟩ which have turned into geminates, such that ⟨-erC- -orC-⟩ are doubly distinguished from ⟨-iCC- -uCC-⟩. Seems to work well enough in practice, though.

Could that be an inheritance from the old Kleinschmidt orthography that the modern Greenlandic orthography replaced?

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 3:29 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 3:24 pm And on the other hand, it over-distinguishes by additionally marking the former uvular clusters ⟨rC⟩ which have turned into geminates, such that ⟨-erC- -orC-⟩ are doubly distinguished from ⟨-iCC- -uCC-⟩. Seems to work well enough in practice, though.

Could that be an inheritance from the old Kleinschmidt orthography that the modern Greenlandic orthography replaced?

Probably, but it doesn’t explain why they kept that feature in particular.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 3:32 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 3:29 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 3:24 pm And on the other hand, it over-distinguishes by additionally marking the former uvular clusters ⟨rC⟩ which have turned into geminates, such that ⟨-erC- -orC-⟩ are doubly distinguished from ⟨-iCC- -uCC-⟩. Seems to work well enough in practice, though.

Could that be an inheritance from the old Kleinschmidt orthography that the modern Greenlandic orthography replaced?

Probably, but it doesn’t explain why they kept that feature in particular.

Apparently Inuktun, or Polar Eskimo, preserves some of the consonant clusters that get assimilated together in West and East Greenlandic, which could be part of it.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 3:43 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 3:32 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 3:29 pm

Could that be an inheritance from the old Kleinschmidt orthography that the modern Greenlandic orthography replaced?

Probably, but it doesn’t explain why they kept that feature in particular.

Apparently Inuktun, or Polar Eskimo, preserves some of the consonant clusters that get assimilated together in West and East Greenlandic, which could be part of it.

Perhaps, but Inuktun is its own language with its own orthography.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 4:06 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 3:43 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 3:32 pm

Probably, but it doesn’t explain why they kept that feature in particular.

Apparently Inuktun, or Polar Eskimo, preserves some of the consonant clusters that get assimilated together in West and East Greenlandic, which could be part of it.

Perhaps, but Inuktun is its own language with its own orthography.

The other question is how old are these assimilations? Were they unassimilated by some in living memory in 1973?

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 4:18 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 4:06 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 3:43 pm

Apparently Inuktun, or Polar Eskimo, preserves some of the consonant clusters that get assimilated together in West and East Greenlandic, which could be part of it.

Perhaps, but Inuktun is its own language with its own orthography.

The other question is how old are these assimilations? Were they unassimilated by some in living memory in 1973?

I doubt it.

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 4:18 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 4:18 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 4:06 pm

Perhaps, but Inuktun is its own language with its own orthography.

The other question is how old are these assimilations? Were they unassimilated by some in living memory in 1973?

I doubt it.

Oh I got it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenlandic_phonology wrote: Greenlandic phonology allows clusters of two consonants, but phonetically, the first consonant in a cluster is assimilated to the second one resulting in a geminate consonant. If the first consonant is /ʁ/ or /q/, it nevertheless opens/retracts the preceding vowel, which in case of /i/ and /u/ is then written ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩. Geminate /l/ is pronounced [ɬː]. Geminate /ɣ/ is pronounced [çː ~ xː]. Geminate /ʁ/ is pronounced [χː]. Geminate /v/ is pronounced [fː] and written ⟨ff, rf⟩.[20]

(Emphasis mine.)

This is why ⟨r⟩ is still written in clusters.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 6:23 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 4:18 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 4:18 pm

The other question is how old are these assimilations? Were they unassimilated by some in living memory in 1973?

I doubt it.

Oh I got it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenlandic_phonology wrote: Greenlandic phonology allows clusters of two consonants, but phonetically, the first consonant in a cluster is assimilated to the second one resulting in a geminate consonant. If the first consonant is /ʁ/ or /q/, it nevertheless opens/retracts the preceding vowel, which in case of /i/ and /u/ is then written ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩. Geminate /l/ is pronounced [ɬː]. Geminate /ɣ/ is pronounced [çː ~ xː]. Geminate /ʁ/ is pronounced [χː]. Geminate /v/ is pronounced [fː] and written ⟨ff, rf⟩.[20]

(Emphasis mine.)

This is why ⟨r⟩ is still written in clusters.

Yes, correct; my point was that it redundantly writes the open vowels ⟨e o⟩ anyway, though not ⟨a⟩.

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon Jan 05, 2026 6:09 am

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 6:23 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 4:18 pm

I doubt it.

Oh I got it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenlandic_phonology wrote: Greenlandic phonology allows clusters of two consonants, but phonetically, the first consonant in a cluster is assimilated to the second one resulting in a geminate consonant. If the first consonant is /ʁ/ or /q/, it nevertheless opens/retracts the preceding vowel, which in case of /i/ and /u/ is then written ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩. Geminate /l/ is pronounced [ɬː]. Geminate /ɣ/ is pronounced [çː ~ xː]. Geminate /ʁ/ is pronounced [χː]. Geminate /v/ is pronounced [fː] and written ⟨ff, rf⟩.[20]

(Emphasis mine.)

This is why ⟨r⟩ is still written in clusters.

Yes, correct; my point was that it redundantly writes the open vowels ⟨e o⟩ anyway, though not ⟨a⟩.

You seemed to indicate that ⟨erC⟩ and ⟨orC⟩ were pronounced identically to ⟨iCC⟩ and ⟨uCC⟩, which is what I was commenting on.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Mon Jan 05, 2026 10:12 am

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon Jan 05, 2026 6:09 am

Travis B. wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 6:23 pm

Oh I got it!



(Emphasis mine.)

This is why ⟨r⟩ is still written in clusters.

Yes, correct; my point was that it redundantly writes the open vowels ⟨e o⟩ anyway, though not ⟨a⟩.

You seemed to indicate that ⟨erC⟩ and ⟨orC⟩ were pronounced identically to ⟨iCC⟩ and ⟨uCC⟩, which is what I was commenting on.

Ah, no, I didn’t mean to imply that.

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Sun Jan 04, 2026 2:41 pmSo the correct title would be De Orthographiis Phonemicis.

Arguably, it should be Phonematicis.