Appendix:G'Vunna orthography

G'Vunna Language Navigation: Home, Phonology, Grammar, Vocabulary, Orthography

Oz is an alphabet by David J. Peterson used to write the G'Vunna language from Tencent Games' Arena of Valor.

Orthography

The G'Vunna script, known as Oz, originates from the script used to write the Veda language, Welqor. It derives its name from the Veda word os, meaning "razor" or "blade." The script is an alphabetic system with distinctive characteristics. The glyphs of the Oz script are shown beside their source Welqor glyphs below:

Oz	Welqor	Romanization	IPA	Notes
None		ə	ə	Unwritten.
a	a	a	a	Unwritten in some predictable positions.
b	b	b	b
d	d	d	d
dh	dz	dh (ddh when geminate)	ð	Used to stand for [dz].
dhy	dz + y	j	dʒ
dhü	dz + yu	ju	dʒu
dhö	dz + a + yu	jo	dʒo
e	a + i	e	e
f	f	f	f
g	g	g	g
gh	gh	gh (ggh when geminate)	ɣ
i	i	i or zh	Stands for [ʒ] before vowels and for [i] elsewhere.
ü	yu	ü	y
ö	a + yu	ö	ø
k	k	k	k
kh	kh	kh (kkh when geminate)	x
l	l	l	l
m	m	m	m
n	n	n	n
ny	n + y	ny (nny when geminate)	ɲ
nü	n + yu	nyu	ɲu
nö	n + a + yu	nyo	ɲo
ng	ng	ng (nng when geminate)	ŋ
o	a + u	o	o
p	p	p	p
q	q	q	q
r	r	r	ʀ
s	s	s	s
sy	s + y	sh (ssh when geminate)	ʃ
sü	s + yu	shu	ʃu
sö	s + a + yu	sho	ʃo
t	t	t	t
th	ts	th (tth when geminate)	θ	Used to stand for [ts].
thy	ts + y	ch (cch when geminate)	tʃ
thü	ts + yu	chu	tʃu
thö	ts + a + yu	cho	tʃo
u	u	u, v	Stands for [v] before vowels and for [u] elsewhere.
v	v	v	v
z	z	z	z
zy	z + y	zh (zzh when geminate)	ʒ
zü	z + yu	zhu	ʒu
zö	z + a + yu	zho	ʒo
@@	None	(geminate)a, (geminate)ə	ːa, ːə	Indicates that the previous consonant is geminated and followed by [a] or [ə].

The majority of shapes retained their original forms, albeit decorated by points at stroke ends. They are for the most part written in one stroke, forming a continuous shape, and begin from the top right, whenever feasible. Most shapes are left open, except for vowels. Note that the glyph for i also serves as zh. Similarly, u can represent v. Notably, sounds absent from this set, such as sh, ch, j, and ny, are expressed through sequences of coronal consonants followed by i/y.

G'Vunna has vowel harmony, allowing either high vowels or low vowels within a word. Three pairs of vowels are differentiated by a diacritic, a rotated version of the glyph for a, which signifies a lowered vowel, although a by itself remains unaffected, as it does not need this marker.

Of note is the separate glyph denoting word-final gemination followed by either -a or -ǝ. Many words conclude with this glyph, introduced as a practical means for scribes to conclude a word while implying the remaining components. It is characterized by a top-to-bottom slash, symbolizing the omission of subsequent elements, as a shorthand to convey "the rest follows the usual pattern."

There is no stand-alone glyph for the sound ǝ. Neither a nor ǝ is explicitly written when their presence is understood. For instance, consider the word suzǝnnǝ, meaning "to pierce":

suznn

The spelling is s-u-z-n-gemination, with the second ǝ omitted since readers can infer the required vowel, which must be either ǝ or a. The choice depends on the preceding vowel, and since the initial vowel in the word is u, readers deduce that it must be ǝ, maintaining vowel harmony. The same principle applies to the word zhamban, meaning "chaos":

iambn

This word is spelled i-a-m-b-n. As a vowel follows the glyph m, i must be read as zh, while the initial vowel being a determines that the otherwise impermissible cluster *bn must be separated by a vowel, which, in this case, is a.

Punctuation

Some supplementary glyphs are also part of the script:

Oz	Welqor	Romanization
,	,	Pause
.	.	End of sentence
?	?	Question mark
(	(	Left parenthesis
)	)	Right parenthesis
'	None	‘, clitic marker

The apostrophe is used with clitics, and so is present in the spelling of the name of the language, G'Vunnǝ.

Numerals

The numerals of the Oz script are shown in the following table:

Oz	Welqor	Arabic
0	0	0
1	1	1
2	2	2
3	3	3
4	4	4
5	5	5
6	6	6
7	7	7
8	8	8
9	9	0
10	10	10