Ewellic: U+E680 - U+E6CF

Registered 2008-02-18; revision 2013-02-19

The Ewellic script (pronounced yoo-WELL-ik) was invented by Doug Ewell in 1980. It is a monocase, phonemic script, designed primarily to represent the general pronunciation of English and other languages without implying the phonetic precision of systems such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

It is proposed that the Ewellic script be registered in the ConScript Unicode Registry (CSUR). A block from U+E680 through U+E6CF (5 columns) is proposed and referenced throughout this document.

General information

Ewellic was originally invented as a form of secret writing, but has also been used as a means of transcribing names and certain English words with particularly non-intuitive spellings. The script was originally intended for writing English, with additional letters to provide tentative support for Spanish. A group of 13 new letters was added in 2007, so that Ewellic can now be used to write French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Esperanto as well as English.

As a phonemic, rather than phonetic, script, Ewellic is intended to indicate the approximate, rather than precise, pronunciation of words. For example, there is no attempt to distinguish between the "pure" O of Italian and the diphthongal O of British English, or between the various R sounds of English, French, Spanish, and German. Spelling represents a general, idealized pronunciation of each word as it is understood by the writer; only phonemically relevant distinctions are represented by distinct letters.

Since spelling is based on pronunciation, words such as tomato and aunt that have alternative pronunciations will have more than one possible spelling. This is a characteristic of the alphabet, and does not imply an attempt to standardize pronunciation or accents.

Glyphs

The shapes of Ewellic letters are influenced by the Runic and Cirth alphabets, but Ewellic is relatively systematic and regular. All consonants (and digits) have a single vertical stroke; all vowels have two vertical strokes. Consonants include only slanted (oblique) half- or full-width horizontal strokes, whereas digits include one or two straight (perpendicular) full-width horizontal strokes.

Letters may not be rotated, reflected, or otherwise transformed, except that ligatures may be formed by connecting horizontal strokes at natural connection points, as described below. Glyph variation that does not alter or obscure the identity of the letter is normal and expected.

Consonants and vowels

Most consonant sounds are relatively straightforward. Note the following in particular:

TH represents the unvoiced TH sound in English thin, while DH represents the voiced TH sound in English this.
KH is the sound heard in German ich or Scottish loch; GH is the voiced counterpart to KH, used for final G in Castilian Spanish.
RR represents the trilled R sound in Spanish carro, and is intended to distinguish this sound from the normal single-flap R sound in Spanish caro.
LY and NY are used for the palatized L and N sounds in Italian migliore and signore, not for words like English barnyard where the N and Y are considered separate sounds.
The glottal stop should be used only where it is phonemically significant, such as in English uh-oh.
The compound or "affricate" consonant sounds heard in English church and judge are spelled with two letters (T + SH and D + ZH respectively).
"Long" or "geminated" consonants, as in Italian mezzo or English lamppost, are indicated by doubling the consonant letter, or the first letter of an affricate pair.

Vowels are intended to represent sounds roughly as shown below:

U+E6AF AE Bann (de) long open front unrounded

U+E6B0 AA ah long open back unrounded

U+E6B1 EE age long close-mid front unrounded

U+E6B2 II eat long close front unrounded

U+E6B3 UU ooze long close back rounded

U+E6B4 A ash short open front unrounded

U+E6B5 E egg short open-mid front unrounded

U+E6B6 I if short close front unrounded

U+E6B7 U up short open-mid back unrounded

U+E6B8 AW awe long open-mid back rounded

U+E6B9 O oak long close-mid back rounded

U+E6BA OO wool short close back rounded

U+E6BB UUE kühn (de) long close front rounded

U+E6BC UE müssen (de) short close front rounded

U+E6BD OOE böse (de) long close-mid front rounded

U+E6BE OE öffnen (de) short open-mid front rounded

U+E6BF SCHWA 2nd syllable of table short open-mid central unrounded

These letters do not necessarily reflect all phonetic variations present in all dialects or accents. For example, U+E6B0 LETTER AA may be used to represent both the a sound in father and the o sound in cot, which are pronounced differently in British English.

Vowel length is not shown as part of Ewellic spelling. The difference in pronunciation between German words such as Bann and Bahn can be shown by the contrastive use of U+E6AF LETTER AE and U+E6B0 LETTER AA. Most other distinctions in vowel length can be resolved from context.

The "schwa" character, used frequently in some dictionary pronunciation guides to denote the 'u' sound in English up, should be used in Ewellic only for truly "empty" vowels such as the table example above, where another vowel would be clearly incorrect. As a special case, the schwa is also used for unstressed a, an, and the in English. The schwa is never used for any stressed syllable.

A special set of nasal vowels exists to support French usage, as shown below:

U+E684 NASAL AA en (fr) nasalized long open front unrounded

U+E685 NASAL E pin (fr) nasalized short open-mid front unrounded

U+E687 NASAL AW on (fr) nasalized long open-mid back rounded

U+E68E NASAL OE un (fr) nasalized short open-mid front rounded

Note that the character names for Ewellic letters do not necessarily reflect the spellings typically associated with those sounds in English or other languages. The English sound sometimes referred to as "long I" (as in ice) is a diphthong, represented in Ewellic by the combination U+E6B0 LETTER AA + U+E698 LETTER Y. Character names are intended for identification only.

Accents and ligatures

Every word of two or more syllables must include an accent mark (U+0301 COMBINING ACUTE ACCENT) over the vowel of the syllable that receives the primary stress. Words generally should not contain more than one accent mark. For ISO/IEC 10646 usage, the use of U+0301 implies Level 3 encoding. In French, where stress does not alter the meaning of words, accent marks may be limited to the stressed syllable within a phrase, or omitted altogether.

Letters may be joined, or ligated, wherever a natural connection point occurs between cross-strokes. Two traditional ligatures are OY (U+E6B8 + U+E698), representing the diphthongal sound in English boy, and UR (U+E6BA + U+E692), representing the sound in English fur (in rhotic dialects). Other possibilities include U+E6B8 and U+E690, pronounced as in English ought. Ligatures may be suggested by inserting U+200D ZERO-WIDTH JOINER between the two letters. Not all fonts and rendering engines support such ligatures, especially in the Private Use Area.

No accented characters, ligatures, or other "presentation forms" are included in the CSUR encoding.

Digits

The digits from U+E6C0 through U+E6C9 may be used to represent either decimal or hexadecimal values. Additional digits encoded from U+E6CA through U+E6CF represent the values 10 through 15 respectively and are for use in hexadecimal contexts only. The character U+0060 GRAVE ACCENT must precede any string of digits intended to be interpreted as hexadecimal.

European digits (U+0030 through U+0039) may be used in place of the Ewellic digits to represent decimal values.

Miscellaneous

Ewellic is written from left to right, top to bottom, with spaces between words.

No "double letters" should occur in Ewellic except to denote a lengthened (geminated) consonant sound, as described above, or for two clearly distinct vowel sounds.

Words should not be broken across lines.

The preferred double quotation marks are U+00AB « and U+00BB » ; the preferred single quotation marks are U+2039 ‹ and U+203A › . Most other punctuation marks are found in the Basic Latin range of Unicode. Inverted exclamation points and question marks are not used.

The order in which characters are encoded in this block is not intended to represent a collation order.

Encoding structure

The Ewellic block is divided into the following ranges, some of which include unassigned code positions:

      U+E680 -> U+E68E  Nasal vowels
      U+E68F -> U+E6AE  Consonants
      U+E6AF -> U+E6BF  Vowels
      U+E6C0 -> U+E6C9  Digits
      U+E6CA -> U+E6CF  Hexadecimal digits

Code assignments

U+E680      (This position shall not be used)
U+E681      (This position shall not be used)
U+E682      (This position shall not be used)
U+E683      (This position shall not be used)
U+E684      EWELLIC LETTER NASAL AA
U+E685      EWELLIC LETTER NASAL E
U+E686      (This position shall not be used)
U+E687      EWELLIC LETTER NASAL AW
U+E688      (This position shall not be used)
U+E689      (This position shall not be used)
U+E68A      (This position shall not be used)
U+E68B      (This position shall not be used)
U+E68C      (This position shall not be used)
U+E68D      (This position shall not be used)
U+E68E      EWELLIC LETTER NASAL OE
U+E68F      EWELLIC LETTER GLOTTAL STOP
U+E690      EWELLIC LETTER T
U+E691      EWELLIC LETTER D
U+E692      EWELLIC LETTER R
U+E693      EWELLIC LETTER L
U+E694      EWELLIC LETTER TH
U+E695      EWELLIC LETTER DH
U+E696      EWELLIC LETTER N
U+E697      EWELLIC LETTER NG
U+E698      EWELLIC LETTER Y
U+E699      EWELLIC LETTER H
U+E69A      EWELLIC LETTER G
U+E69B      EWELLIC LETTER K
U+E69C      EWELLIC LETTER GH
U+E69D      EWELLIC LETTER KH
U+E69E      EWELLIC LETTER Z
U+E69F      EWELLIC LETTER ZH
U+E6A0      EWELLIC LETTER SH
U+E6A1      EWELLIC LETTER S
U+E6A2      EWELLIC LETTER M
U+E6A3      EWELLIC LETTER B
U+E6A4      EWELLIC LETTER W
U+E6A5      EWELLIC LETTER V
U+E6A6      EWELLIC LETTER F
U+E6A7      EWELLIC LETTER P
U+E6A8      EWELLIC LETTER RR
U+E6A9      EWELLIC LETTER LY
U+E6AA      EWELLIC LETTER NY
U+E6AB      EWELLIC LETTER YY
U+E6AC      (This position shall not be used)
U+E6AD      (This position shall not be used)
U+E6AE      (This position shall not be used)
U+E6AF      EWELLIC LETTER AE
U+E6B0      EWELLIC LETTER AA
U+E6B1      EWELLIC LETTER EE
U+E6B2      EWELLIC LETTER II
U+E6B3      EWELLIC LETTER UU
U+E6B4      EWELLIC LETTER A
U+E6B5      EWELLIC LETTER E
U+E6B6      EWELLIC LETTER I
U+E6B7      EWELLIC LETTER U
U+E6B8      EWELLIC LETTER AW
U+E6B9      EWELLIC LETTER O
U+E6BA      EWELLIC LETTER OO
U+E6BB      EWELLIC LETTER UUE
U+E6BC      EWELLIC LETTER UE
U+E6BD      EWELLIC LETTER OOE
U+E6BE      EWELLIC LETTER OE
U+E6BF      EWELLIC LETTER SCHWA
U+E6C0      EWELLIC DIGIT ZERO
U+E6C1      EWELLIC DIGIT ONE
U+E6C2      EWELLIC DIGIT TWO
U+E6C3      EWELLIC DIGIT THREE
U+E6C4      EWELLIC DIGIT FOUR
U+E6C5      EWELLIC DIGIT FIVE
U+E6C6      EWELLIC DIGIT SIX
U+E6C7      EWELLIC DIGIT SEVEN
U+E6C8      EWELLIC DIGIT EIGHT
U+E6C9      EWELLIC DIGIT NINE
U+E6CA      EWELLIC HEXADECIMAL DIGIT TEN
U+E6CB      EWELLIC HEXADECIMAL DIGIT ELEVEN
U+E6CC      EWELLIC HEXADECIMAL DIGIT TWELVE
U+E6CD      EWELLIC HEXADECIMAL DIGIT THIRTEEN
U+E6CE      EWELLIC HEXADECIMAL DIGIT FOURTEEN
U+E6CF      EWELLIC HEXADECIMAL DIGIT FIFTEEN

HTML Michael Everson, Evertype, Cnoc na Sceiche, Leac an Anfa, Cathair na Mart, Co. Mhaigh Eo, Éire, 2013-02-19