The Alphabet
(L'Alfabeto Romanesco)

The first lesson will teach you the basics of Romanesco/Castrense. This is the alphabet and its pronunciation.

The alphabet has thirty-eight phonemes and twenty-eight letters. Except for two additions, it is the same as the English alphabet. Twenty-seven letters are relatively unchanged, one is radically changed and there are nine letters with two possible pronunciations. Twentysix letters also correspond, in at least one phoneme, to the I.P.A. equivalent. Five phonemes are not native and can be found only in loan words, proper names and location names.
Below, each letter of the alphabet is explained in detail. The rules are for American English pronunciation.

There are no secondary accents and only the primary accent is indicated when irregular. Accented letters lenght is indicated following standard dictionary conventions: an acute accent indicates a short accented vocal while a grave one indicates a long accented vowel. This is the orthograpic pattern used also in the IED.
Accented letters indicate the location of the primary tonic accent and are only used in school texts, dictionaries, etc….

COMMENTS

Note that every letter is always pronounced following the rules below.

1. The accented forms are found only in dictionary and school books. They can also be used, only as a courtesy in handwriting, on words with irregular pronunciations. They are never required and they are found only in dictionaries and other didactic tools. They exist only in the lower form. I will use accents liberally in the pages of this presentation, again, only as a didactic tool.
1. à simply indicates the tonic stress
2. æ̀ simply indicates the tonic stress
3. é simply indicates the tonic stress
4. è simply indicates the tonic stress
5. í simply indicates the tonic stress
6. œ̀ simply indicate the tonic stress
7. œ́ simply indicate the tonic stress
8. ó simply indicates the tonic stress
9. ò simply indicates the tonic stress
10. ú simply indicates the tonic stress
11. ý simply indicates the tonic stress
N.B. I am using the acute accent "&#769", (" ́") and the grave accent "̀" (" ̀"), to indicate a stress instead of the "&#712" ("'") used by the I.P.A. I made this decision because accents (grave and acute) are still used in dictionaries world wide.
2. The following letter may use two distinct lower case forms:
   1. The forms "c" and "ç" are to be used only in the cases specified.
   2. The forms "n" and "ñ" are to be used only in the cases specified.
   3. The forms "t" and "ß" are to be used only in the cases specified.
   While this changes is optional, consistency is recommended in all cases.

3. The following letters were changed in to simplify pronunciation:
   1. The IPA sounds "ʧ" and "k" were separated and assigned to two existing letters. This separation will require some spelling changes. The change is also fairly self intuitive.
   2. The IPA sounds "ʤ" and "g" were separated and assigned to two existing letters. This separation will require some spelling changes. The change is also fairly self intuitive.
   3. The IPA sounds "s" and "z" were separated and assigned to two existing letters. This separation will require some spelling changes. The change is also fairly self intuitive.
   4. The IPA sounds "ʃ" and "ʒ" were assigned to an existing letter. This re-assignment will require some spelling changes. The change is also fairly self intuitive.
   5. The IPA sounds "ʣ" and "ʦ" were assigned to a modified letter. This re-assignment will require some spelling changes. The change is also fairly self intuitive.

4. The following letters, or combinations of letters can be eliminated and should never be used:
   1. The letter «X» representing the IPA sounds «/ks/» and «/gz/», should always be replaced, as appropriate, by either the IPA "/ks/" or the IPA "/gz/" combinations.
   2. The forms «CH», «PH», «RH» and «TH» in words of Greek origin are always incorrect and should be replaced by "H", "F", "R" and "T" respectively.
   3. The graeco-latin combination «ti» can be optionally replaced by "ßi".
   4. The forms «Ä», «CH», «Ö» and «Ü» in words of german origin are always incorrect and should be replaced by "Æ", "H", "Œ" and "Y" respetively.
   5. The forms "CH" of French, English and Spanish origin, the "SCI/SCE' of italian origin and the "SH" of English origin are always incorrect and should always be avoided and replaced by either "X" or "C", as appropriate.

5. Several letters still have two, in un case 3, possible sounds each. Unfortunately the basic Latin codepage does not offer much alternatives. Fortunately most of the sounds are not very commun in Castrense or can easily be identified.

Since there are eleven letters, (listed in green), which do not correspond to a single sound, the equivalent IPA symbol can always be used in the lower case. In this case, the correct IPA symbols for vowels having an accepted pronunciation range, may also be used in dictionaries and didactic books. Care should be always exercized to avoid mixing formats in the same text, unless special handling is used. The most commun way is the use of italics.
"Lucida Handwriting" is recommended as a script font. It contains all the letters required by Castrense orthography, including æ/Æ, ð/Ð, œ/Œ, ß, þ/Þ, ø/Ø and ß.

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