Lately a successful and most comprehensive alphabet was devised from all known forms of Chuvash Romanization - CVLat. In many instances CVLat represents the structure of language more accurately than the Cyrillic alphabet, official and legal in Chuvash Republic.
CVLat consists of 22 principle letters that stand for 22 principle sounds of Chuvash language: AĂCEĔHIJKLMNPRŞSŠTUÜVY(22)+FĬOÖXZ
The vowels:
AĂ EĔ YI UÜ (OÖ)
All Chuvash vowels are either "hard" or "soft", Ă being the hard and Ĕ being its umlaut "soft" double. Also vowels can be short unstressed and long stressed. The short vowels are modified with the accent "breve": ĂĔ. Normally, Ă is short for A and Y and U; Ĕ is short for E and I and Ü, - but it is in CVLat texts that Ĭ, Ŏ, Ŭ can be found, these reduced vowels occur in loan words (Linŭx, Tesĭs, Intustrĭ). The "breve" is important because it also helps read words with proper stress.
The Consonants:
JLMNRV PTCŞSŠKH
The consonants can be viewed in two directions:
I. All consonants have doubled oppositions:
J-JJ L-LL M-MM N-NN R-RR V-VV P-PP T-TT C-CC Ş-ŞŞ S-SS Š-ŠŠ K-KK H-HH
In linguistics this phenomenon is called gemination, it is vital to differentiate between short and long consonants in Chuvash language.
II. Consonants fall into 2 principally different groups: sonorants and non-sonorants.
JLMNRV are sonorants and share some features with vowels.
PTCŞSŠKH are the weakest sounds in the language for they are modified depending on their position to vowels and sonorants. These sounds are always pronounced voiceless at the beginning and the end of any utterance. However in intervocalic position (preceded and followed by vowels, or preceded by sonorant and followed by vowel) they are voiced and P will sound like B, K will sound like G, S will sound like Z, etc. This phenomenon may be observed in English words like Rose, Nose. However if the non-sonarant is strengthened by doubling in length it is pronounced without voice, cf. English Pose and Posse. Therefore formula B=P≠PP applies to all non-sonorants in the Chuvash language.
When standing next to soft (umlaut) vowel [eĕiü] consonants accommodate - they are palatalized. With most consonants palatalization is unimportant, but there are three for which palatalization is important: L N T. The palatalized L' N' and T' act independently in certain words (they are palatalized while not standing to any soft vowels): hal "spirit" - hal' "now", şunat "wing" - şunat' "burns". In certain words long LL' NN' and TT' also occur, especially in Virjal dialect.
The Stress
Generally, the final syllable of the word is stressed. This is especially true for the Anatri dialect of the language. However for standard Chuvash the rules of stress from Virjal dialect are relevant. It is here that we need to differentiate short and long vowels. The rule is simple: if there are more than one syllables in the word the final long-vowel syllable is stressed; if there are no long vowels in the word the first syllable of the word is stressed. The shortness of the vowel is shown by ̆ "breve": ăĕĭŏ. So: ăšalană, ăšănnă, ăšănma.
The above are the underlying principles of writing CVLat.
Below is the correspondence of CVLat to the official Cyrillic Alphabet of Chuvash Respublic:
Latin - Cyrillic
LT - CR - Comment
Aa - А
Ăă - Ăă
Cc - Чч, Дж
Ee - Ээ, Ее
Ěě - Ěě
Hh - Xx
Ii - Ии
Jj - Йй
Kk - Kк, Гг
Ll - Лл
Mm - Mм
Nn - Нн
Pp - Пп, Бб
Rr - Pp
Şş - Çç, Щщ
Ss - Cc, Зз
Šš - Шш, Жж
Tt - Тт, Дд
Uu - Уу
Üü - Ӳӳ
Vv - Вв
Yy - Ыы
Ff - Фф
Ĭĭ - Ии
Oo - Оо
Öö - Öö
Xx - КСкс, ГЗгз, КЗкз
Zz - Цц
CR - LT
E - Je e.g. Jen
Я - Ja e.g. Jalav
Ю - Ju e.g. Jumah
Ё - Jo e.g. Jolkka
Э - E e.g Ereshmen
Щ - Ş, ŠC
ЩЩ - ŞŞ, ŠC e.g. Ращща - Raşşa, Raşca
Ъ - e.g. тухъя - tuhja
ь - ’ e.g. тухать - tuhat’
A Sample Text in Latin Script and in Cyrillic Script:
Şurhi tĕnce vărannă cuh,
Havaslă kun šărannă cuh,
Cun savănat’, cĕre siket,
Şĕršyvăm şinchen jurlas kilet.
Çурхи тĕнче вăраннă чух,
Хаваслă кун шăраннă чух,
Чун савăнать, чĕре сикет,
Çĕршывăм çинчен юрлас килет.
Link Article ::
Printable Version
Last edited by: Šyravşă, 2008-01-26 20:41:27. Views 9652.