Appendix:Ravkan orthography

Ravkan Language Navigation: Home, Phonology, Grammar, Vocabulary, Orthography, Dialogue

Im Shaliloriyi is an alphabet created by David J. Peterson that is used to write the Ravkan language from the Netflix series Shadow and Bone.

Orthography

Im Shaliloriyi is an alphabet. As such, it features full characters for both consonants and vowels. It was designed based on an original prompt of "fantasy Cyrillic". Like in the Latin and Cyrillic scripts, there are lowercase and uppercase versions of each character, with most only differing in size, the general shape being the same for both.

Im Shaliloriyi has letters for palatalized consonants and for diphthongs. They all derive from ligatures of a vowel or consonant letter and a following i.

Modern Ravkan's spelling does not perfectly match its pronunciation because some voicing assimilations conditioned by affixes are not reflected in the spelling (for instance, zhelpka is spelt zhelbka, zhelbka, because it derives from zhelba) and because some of Old Ravkan's sounds merged with others or were lost (for example, da is spelt dagh with a silent gh, while gor is spelt ghor with a gh pronounced /g/ like a g). Furthermore, it does not indicate stressed syllables.

Letters

The Im Shaliloriyi letters for consonant and vowel sounds are shown in the table below:

Im Shaliloriyi		Romanization	IPA	Notes
Uppercase	Lowercase
A	a	a	a, ə	Stands for [ə] in post-tonic syllables.
Ai	ai	ai	ai
B	b	b	b
By	by	by	bʲ
Ch	ch	ch	tʃ
D	d	d	d
Dy	dy	dy	dʲ
Dz	dz	dz	dz
Dzy	dzy	dzy	dzʲ
E	e	e	e
Ei	ei	ei	ei	The lowercase form is nearly identical to and should not be confused with the lowercase form of ty.
F	f	f	f
Fy	fy	fy	fʲ
G	g	g	g
Gh	gh	g or unromanized (formely gh)	g, silent	Used to stand for /ɣ/, the pronunciation now depends on the environment.
Ghy	ghy	(formely ghy)	(unattested)	Used to stand for /ɣʲ/.
Gy	gy	gy	gʲ
I	i	i	i
J	j	j	dʒ
K	k	k	k
Ky	ky	ky	kʲ
L	l	l	l
Ly	ly	ly	lʲ
M	m	m	m
My	my	my	mʲ
N	n	n	n
Ny	ny	ny	nʲ
O	o	o	o, ə	Stands for [ə] word-finally when unstressed.
Oi	oi	oi	oi
P	p	p	p
Py	py	py	pʲ
R	r	r	ɾ
Ry	ry	ry	ɾʲ
S	s	s	s
Sh	sh	sh	ʃ
Sy	sy	sy	sʲ
T	t	t	t
Ts	ts	ts	ts
Tsy	tsy	tsy	tsʲ
Ty	ty	ty	tʲ	The lowercase form is nearly identical to and should not be confused with the lowercase form of ei.
U	u	u	u
V	v	v	v
Vy	vy	vy	vʲ
W	w	w	w
Y	y	y	j
Z	z	z	z
Zh	zh	zh	ʒ
Zy	zy	zy	zʲ

Numerals

The Ravkan numeral system is base-10. It is shown in the table below:

Im Shaliloriyi	Roman
0	0
1	1
2	2
3	3
4	4
5	5
6	6
7	7
8	8
9	9
10	10

Punctuation

Im Shaliloriyi includes some punctuation marks, which are shown in the table below:

Im Shaliloriyi	Roman
,	,
.	.
;	;
!	!
?	?
( )	" "
$	Vlachka (Ravkan currency) sign