Appendix:Gandal orthography

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

Orthography

The Gandal alphabet, known as the Shul or "pure" script, directly evolves from Veda's script, the Welqor abjad. Though the script is now an alphabet that indicates every vowel, sound changes resulted in different letters standing for the same sounds and some letters having several possible readings. For instance, every doubled consonant (i.e. geminate) is now pronounced as a single one.

An important rule of Gandal's orthography is that every vowel letter's pronunciation changes depending on stress, on whether the vowel used to be long and whether it followed one of Veda's vowel-retracting consonants (*[x], *[ɣ] and *[q]).

Vowels became long in stressed open syllables and before syllable-final velar fricatives when the latter disappeared. Both the short and the long vowels' qualities then changed but some of these changes were blocked by the retracting consonants, and short non-high vowels became [ə] when unstressed, the length contrast then disappeared. This resulted in the following possible readings:

Old	Modern
	Normal		Retracted
	Stressed	Unstressed	Stressed	Unstressed
a	æ	ǝ	ɑ	ǝ
aː	e		ɑ
e	ɛ	ǝ	ɛ	ǝ
eː	i	ɛ
i		e
iː	aj
o	o	ǝ	o	ǝ
oː	u	o
u
uː	aw

There are, however, exceptions: most notably, Veda's *[ə], which does not have its own letter, surfaced as [o], [ɛ] or [ɑ] when stressed depending on the surrounding consonants and as [ǝ] or [ɛ] when unstressed, these vowels may therefore have unexpected spellings when they descend from *[ə].

Letters

The glyphs of Shul representing sounds or sequences thereof are shown with their Welqor sources in the following table. Keep in mind that in Gandal's romanization, a stands for [ɑ] when stressed and for [ǝ] when unstressed, and that all instances of [ǝ] are spelt a, even the ones that do not descend from Veda's *[a].

Glyph	Source	Romanization	IPA	Notes
p	p	p	p
b	b	b	b
t	t	t	t
d	d	d	d
th	ts	th	θ
thy	tsy	ch	tʃ	Used to stand for [tsj], now stands for [tʃ] before other vowels.
thya	tsya	cha/chæ/chei	tʃɑ, tʃǝ, tʃæ, tʃe
thyu	tsyu	chu/chaw	tʃu, tʃaw
dh	dz	dh	ð
dhy	dzy	j	dʒ	Used to stand for [dzj], now stands for [dʒ] before other vowels.
dhya	dzya	ja/jæ/jei	dʒɑ, dʒǝ, dʒæ, dʒe
dhyu	dzyu	ju/jaw	dʒu, dʒaw
k	k	k	k
g	g	g	g
q	q	k	k	Used to stand for [q], now stands for [k] but causes retraction of a following vowel.
a	a	a/æ/ei	ɑ, ǝ, æ, e
e	e	e/a/i	ɛ, ǝ, i
o	o	o/a/u	o, ǝ, u
f	f	f	f
v	v	v	v
s	s	s	s
sy	sy	sh	ʃ	Used to stand for [sj], now stands for [ʃ] before other vowels.
sya	sya	sha/shæ/shei	ʃɑ, ʃǝ, ʃæ, ʃe
syu	syu	shu/shaw	ʃu, ʃaw
z	z	z	z
zh	zy	zh	ʒ	Used to stand for [zj], now stands for [ʒ] before other vowels.
zya	zya	zha/zhæ/zhei	ʒɑ, ʒǝ, ʒæ, ʒe
zyu	zyu	zhu/zhaw	ʒu, ʒaw
h	kh	h/-	h, silent	Silent in some environments, most notably syllable-finally. Causes retraction of a following vowel.
gh	gh	g/h/y/-	g, h, j, silent	Used to stand for [ɣ], now silent (most notably syllable-finally) or stands for [g], [h] or [j] depending on the environment. Causes retraction of a following vowel.
u	u	u/aw/o	u, aw, o
w	w	w	w
wa	wa	wa/wæ/wei	wɑ, wǝ, wæ, we	Ligature.
wi	wi	wi/way	wi, waj	Ligature.
i	i	i/ay/ei	i, aj, e
y	y	y	j
ya	ya	ya/yæ/yei	jɑ, jǝ, jæ, je	Ligature.
yu	yu	yu/yaw/i	ju, jaw, i	Ligature. Realized as [i] word-initially when unstressed.
r	r	r	ɹ
l	l	l	l
m	m	m	m
n	n	n	n
ny	ny	ny	ɲ	Used to stand for [nj], now stands for [ɲ] before other vowels.
nya	nya	nya/nyæ/nyei	ɲɑ, ɲǝ, ɲæ, ɲe
nyu	nyu	nyu/nyaw	ɲu, ɲaw
ng	ng	ng, n	ŋ, n	Now stands for [n] word-initially.

Ligatures

In addition to some ligatures inherited from Welqor, Shul has a few more recent ligatures of Shul letters:

Glyph	Source	Romanization	IPA
tho	th‌o	tho/tha/thu	θo, θǝ, θu
thu	th‌u	thu/thaw	θu, θaw
yuyu	yu‌yu	yu	ju

Punctuation

The punctuation marks of the Shul script are shown with their Welqor sources (if any) in the table below:

Glyph	Source	Usage
.	.	Period
,	,	Comma
?	?	Question mark
!	none	Exclamation mark
( )	( )	Parentheses
-	none	Clitic or contraction marker

Spelling of paradigms

When examining a noun declension table, it becomes apparent that Gandal's spelling conventions require learning how to spell in the Shul script separately from learning how to speak Gandal. This distinction is illustrated by the differences in spelling between vowel-initial accusative singular and plural forms, both pronounced the same due to their shared initial "u," as seen in the following table (in which C = consonant and V = vowel, and gh and yuyu are romanized ⟨gh⟩ and ⟨yuyu⟩ respectively):

Inanimate (Chaos)	Ergative		Oblique		Accusative
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
C...V	jeghon jiyan ⟨jeghon⟩	yajeghon yajiyan ⟨yajeghon⟩	jee ji ⟨jee⟩	yajee yaji ⟨yajee⟩	yujee iji ⟨yujee⟩	yuyajee iyaji ⟨yuyajee⟩
V...V	umbeghon umbiyan ⟨umbeghon⟩	yumbeghon yumbiyan ⟨yumbeghon⟩	umbe umba ⟨umbe⟩	yumbe yumba ⟨yumbe⟩	yumbe yumba ⟨yumbe⟩	yuyumbe yumba ⟨yuyumbe⟩
C...C	chamon chaman ⟨chamon⟩	yachamon yachaman ⟨yachamon⟩	cham cham ⟨cham⟩	yacham yacham ⟨yacham⟩	yucham icham ⟨yucham⟩	yuyacham iyacham ⟨yuyacham⟩
V...C	udhon awdhan ⟨udhon⟩	yudhon yudhan ⟨yudhon⟩	udh udh ⟨udh⟩	yudh yudh ⟨yudh⟩	yudh yudh ⟨yudh⟩	yuyudh yudh ⟨yuyudh⟩

The example words shown in the table above are jeghon jiyan "belly," umbeghon umbiyan "emptiness," chamon chaman "cloud," and udhon awdhan "whip."

Numerals

Gandal uses a base-10 number system, which is shown in the following table with its Welqor sources:

Glyph	Source	#
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	9