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[Brightgalrs]

In case you guys haven't seen it:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Dwarven_language

[CaptainMcClellan]

More sophisticated pronunciation guides, ones that take into account stressed syllables, intonation, and how exactly the sounds are grouped in each syllable of the existing words. ( For example, the Dwarven word for abbey is "kulet" is that "ku-let" or "kul-et" and is which syllable is more prominent. Yadda-yadda-yadda. )

There's a system in swedish which deals with just this:
A vowel followed by a single consonant is considered a 'long' vowel, and is pronounced differently from a vowel followed by a double consonant which is considered a 'short' vowel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology#Vowels
Finnish has a similar system, but is a lot more straight-forward:
A single vowel is a 'short' vowel and a double vowel is a 'long' vowel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_phonology#Vowels

Dwarven standard vowels(aeiou(åäö)) could be considered short(meaning kulet is pronounced ku-let), whereas the supplementary vowels(âáà, êéè, îíì, ôóò, ûúù) are 'long' vowels (meaning k/û/ú/ù/let is pronounced kul-et(â ê ô could even be used as the long vowels of å ä ö).

Sorry to have been inactive for a while.  My real-life embark decided to turn into a terrifying glacier 

I couldn't find any doubled vowels in Dwarven, but there are occasional double consonants.  In at least one case the doubling differentiates a word (azin "watch" versus azzin "livid"), but that is not a general pattern.

My preference for phonetics would be a what-you-see-is-what-you-say system that minimizes the combinations that could change pronunciation, which seems justified given the huge number of vowel symbols in use.  For example, this means that an "i" is pronounced the same no matter what letters are around it.  I'm not sure that ku-let and kul-et are detectably different if the vowel sounds are identical.

Dwarven would probably have its own glyphs for what we translate as digraphs (ng, sh, th), so whatever rules we come up with should consider those as if they were single letters.  This isn't how English works ("singer" has a short i sound as if ng was two letters).

They are pronounced differently. To give a close approximation, it's like the difference between "cool it" and "coolant". It changes where the stress falls and what phonemes are voiced and when.

EDIT:

In case you guys haven't seen it:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Dwarven_language

Thanks.

[Dirst]

Fair enough, but the syllable forming rule should ideally run on the vowel sounds (long or short) rather than whether they have accents or not.

Is there a relatively authoritative source of what those vowels sound like (the draft referenced early in the thread has a lot of duplicates in it)?

[CaptainMcClellan]

Unfortunately it doesn't seem so. Should I PM ThreeToe about it? ( Given his background, I figure he's the most authoritative source, possibly even more than Toady... Plus he makes me less nervous and seems to have slightly more time to spend on us. )

[Urist_McDagger]

More sophisticated pronunciation guides, ones that take into account stressed syllables, intonation, and how exactly the sounds are grouped in each syllable of the existing words. ( For example, the Dwarven word for abbey is "kulet" is that "ku-let" or "kul-et" and is which syllable is more prominent. Yadda-yadda-yadda. )

There's a system in swedish which deals with just this:
A vowel followed by a single consonant is considered a 'long' vowel, and is pronounced differently from a vowel followed by a double consonant which is considered a 'short' vowel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology#Vowels
Finnish has a similar system, but is a lot more straight-forward:
A single vowel is a 'short' vowel and a double vowel is a 'long' vowel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_phonology#Vowels

Dwarven standard vowels(aeiou(åäö)) could be considered short(meaning kulet is pronounced ku-let), whereas the supplementary vowels(âáà, êéè, îíì, ôóò, ûúù) are 'long' vowels (meaning k/û/ú/ù/let is pronounced kul-et(â ê ô could even be used as the long vowels of å ä ö).

Sorry to have been inactive for a while.  My real-life embark decided to turn into a terrifying glacier 

I couldn't find any doubled vowels in Dwarven, but there are occasional double consonants.  In at least one case the doubling differentiates a word (azin "watch" versus azzin "livid"), but that is not a general pattern.

My preference for phonetics would be a what-you-see-is-what-you-say system that minimizes the combinations that could change pronunciation, which seems justified given the huge number of vowel symbols in use.  For example, this means that an "i" is pronounced the same no matter what letters are around it.  I'm not sure that ku-let and kul-et are detectably different if the vowel sounds are identical.

Dwarven would probably have its own glyphs for what we translate as digraphs (ng, sh, th), so whatever rules we come up with should consider those as if they were single letters.  This isn't how English works ("singer" has a short i sound as if ng was two letters).

I realize that Dwarvish does not have double vowels, this was more or less two examples of how to deal with phonetics(without having to resort to a second alphabet). It's more that I see the additional letter variations as the solution. The letter ê, for example, should probably be pronounced differently from the standard e and since ä(a vowel in both Finnish and Swedish) is already in the game, ê could be a phonetic variation to the regular ä.

It's hard to provide examples in English, both because you do not have ä but also because your phonetic alphabet isn't as easy as I presume English natives perceive it to be(I was taught it only during the last years of grade school which in turn was a long time ago).

As for the glyphs/lettering of the Dwarven language, yes I agree it would be very different from the Latin alphabet. It would probably be a lot closer to Cyrillic.

[CaptainMcClellan]

Not that I'm against it, but why/how so?

[Urist_McDagger]

Not that I'm against it, but why/how so?

Rules for phonetics without the use of a phonetic alphabet?

[CaptainMcClellan]

Hmmm... Yeah, sorta.

[CaptainMcClellan]

So guys, how many of you were aware that there is a Dwarven word for "messiah"?

(( Also bump and I'm still discussing with ToadyOne. ))

[mate888]

So guys, how many of you were aware that there is a Dwarven word for "messiah"?

(( Also bump and I'm still discussing with ToadyOne. ))

He will come to clense the Earth of sinners and elves!
Amen!

[CaptainMcClellan]

Psssh!

Also, guys are we going to work on Dwarven runes any?

[Inarius]

PTW, too.

Hope this will make something, at last. I remember there were several projects before this one. Still, I'm always thrilled by these...and i think this is time to start on it.

[CaptainMcClellan]

I know at this point it's considered near cliche, but are we going to base the Dwarven writing system on Scandinavian runes? ( Alternatively, there is also Phonecian, both provide the same benefits and we're probably going to have to start with one or the other as a base. )

[Dirst]

I know at this point it's considered near cliche, but are we going to base the Dwarven writing system on Scandinavian runes? ( Alternatively, there is also Phonecian, both provide the same benefits and we're probably going to have to start with one or the other as a base. )

Since there are 25 vowels and 15 consonants, I was going to make a system of runes that suggested positions along a gear.  The vowels would suggest points around Loam's star, and the consonants points along the five spokes.  Just haven't had time to spend in front of GIMP to make it happen.  So basic vowels like /\ for I and |/ for A and \| for O with doubled lines to indicate the accented character immediately next to each point, double both likes to indicate the ^ form.  Tricky part is the hybrids half-way between points.

Next part is to group the consonants into 5 triplets and come up with "spoke" like marks (one of which will be a simple vertical line associated with the "I" point) that can have three variations each.  One variation could be the plain line itself if we think a mildly leaning "U" spoke is visually distinct enough from the harshly leaning "A" spoke.

There, a full set of 40 runes procedurally generated.

[Loam]

Since there are 25 vowels and 15 consonants, I was going to make a system of runes that suggested positions along a gear.  The vowels would suggest points around Loam's star, and the consonants points along the five spokes.  Just haven't had time to spend in front of GIMP to make it happen.  So basic vowels like /\ for I and |/ for A and \| for O with doubled lines to indicate the accented character immediately next to each point, double both likes to indicate the ^ form.  Tricky part is the hybrids half-way between points.

I'm leery of having runes look so similar, but I'll reserve judgement until I see the finished product. Here's the ones I came up with:

Spoiler: Runes (click to show/hide)

Note there's actually 17 consonants (sh, th, and ng counted as one each, and h doesn't count since it never occurs except in sh and th)
These runes are pretty arbitrary, though, and you'll notice that some look like Roman letters, so there could be some confusion. There's only so many combinations of straight lines you can come up with...

Unrelated, but I'd like some input. I've been thinking of making a minimal case-system for nouns, to help with legibility: a "subject" and an "object" case. It'd work with the sentence-structures, but would clue you in to the voice earlier.
As it stands now:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mamgoz guth tovon. - "The dragon kills the dwarf"
Tovon mamgoz guth. - "The dwarf is killed by the dragon"
Guth tovon (mamgoz)! - "Kill the dwarf (dragon)!"

Is that readable enough, or would it help significantly to mark for objects, like so:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mamgoz guth tovnor.
Tovnor mamgoz guth.
Guth tovnor (mamgoz)!

The "tovnor" is also experimental: nouns arranged (C)VCVC would delete the second vowel, add that vowel + r to form the object case.