Lynguistykon: Commonscript

Commonscript is the name of a writing system developed to be able to write the various languages of Somewhere Else using one common phonetic (phoneme-representing) script. Different native writing systems exist for different languages Somewhere Else but Commonscript is able to be used for all of them and facilitates communication and recordkeeping (such as for the Encylopedia) for the People of Somewhere Else.

There are alternative renditions of Commonscript that visually present the letters differently, but all have the same names, sounds, and order, so the script still remains the same even when the letters themselves may look different. Commonscript follows its rules consistently, thus each letter will always make the sound assigned to it (adjusted to the speaker's accent), and there are no "silent" letters. In order to know where to place an emphasis on a word, each word has an emphasis letter (letter 53) placed above the letter emphasized. The size of the emphasis letter denotes whether it is merely a small emphasis or a significant emphasis. There are no uppercase or lowercase in Commonscript.

Although Commonscript letters are "consistent" and always make the sound assigned to them, this does not negate the fact that different accents/dialects and different languages exist. This has two significant implications. First, while the Commonscript letter itself is consistent, a letter may be habitually pronounced in a specific way by a speaker with one accent and habitually pronounced in a slightly different way by another (sometimes blurring the line between letters, especially for speakers whose native language does not use that sound); or a speaker may have a habit of placing emphasis on a different part than what's written. Second, a word may be written in Commonscript in a way that a specific language or dialect renders that word, but a speaker from another language or dialect may recognize how their own language/dialect would alter and render that same word and may thus pronounce it differently, according to the frame of reference of their own language's practice and technically using those letters rather than the ones that are written. For example, a standard Ramaysh speaker may pronounce words ending in (Letter 39, Letter 23; transliterated "sa") that they recognize with the pronunciation of (Letter 43, Letter 23; transliterated "zha") instead because "sa" is a base from Umshk that was passed on to Ramaysh but converted in pronunciation to "zha" in the process. Meanwhile many other of the languages that also maintained this base did not change its pronunciation in the process and it is still pronounced "sa" for them, so the Ramaysh speaker may still write it using (Letter 39, Letter 23) for their sake, knowing that they themselves would pronounce it differently than how they're writing it and how others from other languages will pronounce it.

Letters

Commonscript has 53 letters that are consistent (though letter 53 can vary in size to denote the scale of an emphasis). Note that there are presented common transliterations of Commonscript letters to Wherescript, but as can be observed, Wherescript does not follow the rules of Commonscript, so the same letters in Wherescript may refer at different times to different letters in Commonscript, and the same letter from Commonscript may be transliterated multiple different ways, including ones not found listed here. Also, different languages and dialects may have morphemes or words with the same origins, but diverge on how they habitually pronounce them, with their language or dialect habitually trading the original sound for another (known as Letter/Morpheme Shifts; refer to the example of how Brusa is pronounced in Umshk versus in Ramaysh). It can therefore be particularly hard to discern exactly which sound is written when something is written in Wherescript, but one learns patterns.

As an example of a Letter/Morpheme Shift, Brusa written in Commonscript according to its original pronunciation in Umshk would be (Letter 28, Letter 51, Letter 6, Letter 39, Letter 23, with a large Letter 53 over Letter 6), but the way most residents there (many of whom speak Ramaysh) would now pronounce it and most other words with the affix "sa" would be with a Letter 43 and Letter 23 at the end (instead of Letter 39 and Letter 23). The word may be customarily written or transliterated "Brusa" despite the fact that it's actually pronounced by most people "Bruzha", since Brusa is the original pronunciation of the name. This same spelling/pronunciation phenomenon could work the reverse way as well. As an example of a transliteration ambiguity, the transliteration "ch" can refer to either Commonscript Letter 35 or Letter 41, which have very different sounds, Letter 41 can be transliterated either "ch" or "kh", and "j" can refer to Letter 43, Letter 44, or others.

Commonscript Letters
Phoneme	Common Transliterations to Wherescript (A)	(Order)
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	e, eh	1
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	ei, ey	2
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	eimm, aynn	3
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	e, i, ii	4
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	imm, inn	5
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	u, oo	6
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	o, au, eu	7
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	ah, oh, ouh	8
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	a, ah	9
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	amm, ann	10
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	a, ah	11
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	au, ow	12
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	au, aumm	13
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	ae, ai, aimm	14
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	i, eye, aye	15
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	a, ay, ae, ey	16
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	ae, aye, ai	17
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	oi, oy	18
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	uy, ui	19
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	or, ur, uhr, uir	20
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	u, ue, ew	21
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	u	22
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	u, uh, a	23
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	uhmm, uhnn	24
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	i, ih	25
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	' ("pause")	26


^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	y	27
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	b	28
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	d	29
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	d, t	30
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	t	31
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	g	32
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	g, gy, ghy	33
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	k, c	34
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	ch, kh	35
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	h	36
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	f, ph	37
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	th	38
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	s, c	39
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	z, s	40
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	ch	41
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	sh	42
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	zh, g, j, jh	43
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	j	44
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	l	45
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	m	46
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	n	47
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	p	48
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	v	49
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	w	50
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	r	51
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	rr	52
^ⓘ / ^ⓘ	´, ‾ ("emphasis")	53

Handwriting

Here are examples of Commonscript handwriting, where the stroke order is more apparent.

Handwritten Forms
Font	Order	Phoneme	Handwritten
	1	^ⓘ / ^ⓘ