Lesson 2
Alphabet and Transliteration

The D'ni Alphabet

The D'ni alphabet consists of twenty-four characters:

eleven of which can be accented:

to give a total of thirty-five individual sounds. D'ni is a phonetic language, meaning that spelling doesn't affect pronunciation; every D'ni character will always be pronounced the same way. Most of the sounds in D'ni also occur in English, save the  r and  k sounds. The D'ni characters, though, do not resemble Roman letters. Some have compared them to Hebrew or Arabic writing systems. Because a number of characters look alike and can be easily mistaken, it is an important first skill to be able to easily identify and differentiate the various D'ni characters.

Transliteration Systems

One useful tool for helping us understand D'ni characters is transliteration. In order to more easily discuss D'ni sounds in English, we can approximate them with roman letters that produce the same sounds. There are two commonly used systems of transliteration in use today: the Old Transliteration System (OTS) and the New Transliteration System (NTS).

OTS uses both single and double letters to approximate D'ni sounds in a manner that can easily be read but sometimes results in ambiguities. The phrase meaning you're welcome, meUr, is transliterated in OTS as mehoor. It is unclear by simply looking at the transliteration whether to pronounce this as me-hoor (incorrect) or meh-oor (correct).

NTS resolves this problem by establishing a one-to-one correspondence between each D'ni character and its transliteration. Since the English alphabet has only twenty-six letters and D'ni thirty-four sounds, NTS uses diacritical marks and non-standard characters to create enough characters. meUr would be written meúr in NTS, a more rigorous but, for some, less legible way to transliterate the word.

Table of D'ni Characters

Now, read the description of each D'ni character below and study the characters themselves. Pay special attention to the distinguishing features of each, and look at how each character resembles those characters it is commonly mistaken for. You will also find transliterations in both OTS and NTS, followed by a rendering using the International Phonetic Alphabet, a character set used in linguistics to specify phonics. (More info on the IPA can be found here.) The sound of each character is then described with example words in English, and you can click on the link to hear a recording of each sound followed by a D'ni word that features that sound.

Be sure that you take enough time to thoroughly learn the D'ni alphabet and its sounds; these truly are the building blocks of the language, and their importance cannot be overstated. Flashcards may be useful. You will also find transliterations of D'ni words in both OTS and NTS for the next couple lessons, to help familiarize you with D'ni characters in context as you continue to learn.

D’ni	Distinguishing Features	Commonly mistaken for...	OTS	NTS	IPA	Sounds like	Recording
v	two sharp angles at top and bottom	t w a	v	v	v	voice, five	Dova dovah | dova
b	accented v	I	b	b	b	bad, lab	bAk baikh | béx
t	angled curve at top, sharp angle at bottom	v w	t	t	t	tea, get	tagam tahgahm | tagam
s	full curve at top halts midway down, full curve at bottom	m T w	s	s	s	sun, miss	sel sehl | sel
S	accented s	m T w	sh	š	S	she, crash	SEga sheegah | šíga
j	flat at top, curved upswing at bottom	i	j	j	dZ	just, large	v'ja v'jah | v'ja
g	accented j	E	g	g	g	give, flag	gor gor | gor
y	simple, short downstroke at left, flat base with angled upswing	h x	y	y	j	yes, yellow	yavo yahvo | yavo
k	y base with straight flag	o l	kh	x	x	Bach, German doch	Korvak korvahkh | korvax
K	accented  k	O	k	k	k	cat, truck	Kera kehrah | kera
a	angled curve at top, flat base with angled upswing	t v	ah	a	Œ	arm, father	ano ahno | ano
I	accented a	b	I	á	Œi	five, eye	vIlE vIlee | válí
f	full curve at top halts midway down, flat base with angled upswing	z	f	f	f	find, if	fa fah | fa
p	accented f		p	p	p	pet, map	pax pahts | pac
i	flat at top, flat base with angled upswing	j	i(h)	i	I	hit, kitten	gilo gihlo | gilo
E	accented i	g	ee	í	i	see, heat	rEs rees | rís
e	short downstroke at left, two sharp angles bookending upwards curve	m h	e(h)	e	E	met, bed	sev sehv | sev
A	accented  e		ai/ay	é	e	say, eight	Atrus aitruhs | étrus
r	e base with straight flag		r	r	R	No English equivalent; between madder and matter; a "flipped" r	rov hEbor rov heebor | rov híbor
m	angled curve at top, two sharp angles bookending upwards curve	t T	m	m	m	man, lemon	ram rahm | ram
T	full curve at top, upwards curve with sharp angle at left, full curve at right	m	th	þ	T	think, both	ziT zihth | ziþ
d	flat at top, base bookended by two sharp angles		dh	ð	D	this, mother	Dormad dormahdh | dormað
D	accented d		d	d	d	dog, lady	DevoKan dehvokahn | devokan
h	full curve without any angles	y x	h	h	h	how, hello	har hahr | har
o	h base with straight flag	k u l	o	o	o	go, home	Kor kor | kor
O	accented o	U	oy	ó	oi	boy, join	DOha doyhah | dóha
c	h base, flag curves to left	o å	ch	ç	tS	check, church	cir chihr | çir
w	two full curves at top and bottom	v t a	w	w	w	wet, weather	tiwa tihwah | tiwa
u	h base, flag curves to right	o n	u(h)	u	Ã	cup, luck	toKitu tokihtuh | tokitu
U	accented u	O	oo	ú	u	blue, food	tUl tool | túl
x	small hook at left, flat base with angled upswing	y a	ts	c	ts	acts, bets	xav tsahv | cav
l	x base with straight flag	k o n	l	l	l	leg, little	lena lehnah | lena
å	x base, flag curves to left	c l n	a	æ	Q	bat, black	irvån ihrvan | irvæn
z	full curve at top, base is flanked by sharp angle at left and full curve at right, flat stroke at bottom with angled upswing	f m T	z	z	z	zoo, lazy	zu zuh | zu
n	x base, flag curves to right	u	n	n	n	no, ten	nE nee | ní

Two punctuation marks are also known to us that are frequently used in D'ni.

D’ni	Function	OTS	NTS	IPA	Sounds like	Recording
'	accents characters; separates otherwise unpronounceable consonant or vowel clusters	'	'	«, /	cinema, away	m'la vAxU'on m'lah vaitsoo'on | m'la vécú'on
.	marks the beginning of a sentence	.	.	n/a	n/a	n/a

While there is strong suspicion that other punctuation marks exist (namely, an interrogative marker, like the question mark), they have not yet been discovered. In its absence, the . mark will always indicate the beginning of a new sentence.

The Pitfalls of D'ninglish

By far, the most widespread mistakes that get made with new D'ni writers are mistakes of transliteration, especially with proper names. The temptation is to take an English word and simply change the font to D'ni characters, to take each letter of the English word and swap it out for a D'ni character. For example, the name Dianne might be incorrectly transliterated as dianne. Since D'ni is a phonetic language, however, the proper method of transliteration is to first sound out the English word, then find the appropriate characters for those sounds, not for the English letters themselves. Dianne would thus be broken down into the sounds d I a n | d á æ n, and properly transliterated DIån.