The Rheinische Dokumenta () is a
phonetic
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
writing system developed in the early 1980s by a working group of academics, linguists, local language experts, and local language speakers of the
Rhineland
The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.
Term
Historically, the Rhinelands ...
.
It was presented to the public in 1986 by the
Landschaftsverband Rheinland
North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabi ...
.
It offers a uniform common notation of almost every
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
spoken in the
Lower Rhine
The Lower Rhine (german: Niederrhein; kilometres 660 to 1,033 of the river Rhine) flows from Bonn, Germany, to the North Sea at Hook of Holland, Netherlands (including the Nederrijn or "Nether Rhine" within the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta); al ...
area, the western and central Rhineland, the
Berg region, the
Westerwald
The Westerwald (; literally 'Western forest') is a low mountain range on the right bank of the river Rhine in the German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. It is a part of the Rhenish Massif ( or Rhenish ...
,
Eifel
The Eifel (; lb, Äifel, ) is a low mountain range in western Germany and eastern Belgium. It occupies parts of southwestern North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern Rhineland-Palatinate and the southern area of the German-speaking Community of ...
, and
Hunsrück
The Hunsrück () is a long, triangular, pronounced upland in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by the valleys of the Moselle-Saar (north-to-west), the Nahe (south), and the Rhine (east). It is continued by the Taunus mountains, past ...
mountain regions, plus the areas surrounding the
Nahe and
Moselle River
The Moselle ( , ; german: Mosel ; lb, Musel ) is a river
A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becom ...
s.
It encompasses the
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...
s of cities such as
Aachen
Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...
,
Bingen,
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...
,
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...
,
Duisburg
Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in Nor ...
,
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
,
Eschweiler
Eschweiler (, Ripuarian: ) is a municipality in the district of Aachen in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany on the river Inde, near the German-Belgian-Dutch border, and about east of Aachen and west of Cologne.
History
* Celts (fir ...
and
Eschweiler
Eschweiler (, Ripuarian: ) is a municipality in the district of Aachen in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany on the river Inde, near the German-Belgian-Dutch border, and about east of Aachen and west of Cologne.
History
* Celts (fir ...
,
Essen
Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...
,
Eupen
Eupen (, ; ; formerly ) is the capital of German-speaking Community of Belgium and is a city and municipality in the Belgian province of Liège, from the German border (Aachen), from the Dutch border (Maastricht) and from the "High Fens" na ...
,
Gennep
Gennep () is a municipality and a city in upper southeastern Netherlands. It lies in the very northern part of the province of Limburg, 18 km south of Nijmegen. Furthermore, it lies on the right bank of the Meuse river, and south of the forest o ...
,
Gummersbach
Gummersbach (; ksh, Jummersbach) is a town in the States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, being the district seat of the Oberbergischer Kreis. It is located east of Cologne.
History
In 1109 Gummersbach was mentioned in offic ...
,
Heinsberg
Heinsberg (; li, Hinsberg ) is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the seat of the Heinsberg (district), district Heinsberg. It is situated near the border with the Netherlands, on the river Wurm, approx. 20 km north-east of Si ...
,
Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...
,
Kaiserslautern
Kaiserslautern (; Palatinate German: ''Lautre'') is a city in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfur ...
,
Kerkrade
Kerkrade ( Ripuarian: ; li, Kirkraoj; german: Kerkrade or ''Kirchrath'') is a town and a municipality in the southeast of Limburg; the southernmost province of the Netherlands. It forms part of the Parkstad Limburg agglomeration.
Kerkrade is the ...
and
Herzogenrath
Herzogenrath ( Ripuarian: ; li, Hertseraoj; nl, ’s-Hertogenrade) is a municipality in the district of Aachen in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It borders the Dutch town of Kerkrade, the national border in one section running along ...
,
Cleves
Kleve (; traditional en, Cleves ; nl, Kleef; french: Clèves; es, Cléveris; la, Clivia; Low Rhenish: ''Kleff'') is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century ...
,
Koblenz
Koblenz (; Moselle Franconian language, Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz''), spelled Coblenz before 1926, is a German city on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle, a multi-nation tributary.
Koblenz was established as a Roman Empire, Roman mili ...
,
Limburg
Limburg or Limbourg may refer to:
Regions
* Limburg (Belgium), a province since 1839 in the Flanders region of Belgium
* Limburg (Netherlands), a province since 1839 in the south of the Netherlands
* Diocese of Limburg, Roman Catholic Diocese in ...
,
Ludwigshafen
Ludwigshafen, officially Ludwigshafen am Rhein (; meaning " Ludwig's Port upon Rhine"), is a city in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, on the river Rhine, opposite Mannheim. With Mannheim, Heidelberg, and the surrounding region, it form ...
,
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
,
Maastricht
Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...
,
Mainz
Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...
,
Malmedy
Malmedy (; german: Malmünd, ; wa, Måmdiy) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.
On January 1, 2018, Malmedy had a total population of 12,654. The total area is 99.96 km2 which gives a populati ...
,
Mönchengladbach
Mönchengladbach (, li, Jlabbach ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located west of the Rhine, halfway between Düsseldorf and the Dutch border.
Geography Municipal subdivisions
Since 2009, the territory of Mönchengladbac ...
,
Nijmegen
Nijmegen (;; Spanish and it, Nimega. Nijmeegs: ''Nimwèège'' ) is the largest city in the Dutch province of Gelderland and tenth largest of the Netherlands as a whole, located on the Waal river close to the German border. It is about 6 ...
,
Oberhausen
Oberhausen (, ) is a city on the river Emscher in the Ruhr Area, Germany, located between Duisburg and Essen ( ). The city hosts the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and its Gasometer Oberhausen is an anchor point of the European Rout ...
,
Prüm
Prüm () is a town in the Westeifel (Rhineland-Palatinate), Germany. Formerly a district capital, today it is the administrative seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' ("collective municipality") Prüm.
Geography
Prüm lies on the river Prüm (a tri ...
,
Raeren
Raeren () is a municipality of east Belgium located in the Walloon province of Liège. It was part of Germany until the First World War, after which it became part of Belgium. It is one of several towns in eastern Belgium which predominantly spe ...
,
Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken (; french: link=no, Sarrebruck ; Rhine Franconian: ''Saarbrigge'' ; lb, Saarbrécken ; lat, Saravipons, lit=The Bridge(s) across the Saar river) is the capital and largest city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken is S ...
,
Siegen
Siegen () is a city in Germany, in the south Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly sho ...
,
Trier
Trier ( , ; lb, Tréier ), formerly known in English as Trèves ( ;) and Triers (see also names in other languages), is a city on the banks of the Moselle in Germany. It lies in a valley between low vine-covered hills of red sandstone in the ...
,
Venlo
Venlo () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the southeastern Netherlands, close to the border with Germany. It is situated in the province of Limburg (Netherland ...
,
St. Vith
St. Vith (german: Sankt Vith ; french: Saint-Vith ; lb, Sankt Väit ; wa, Sint-Vit) is a city and municipality of East Belgium located in the Walloon province of Liège. It was named after Saint Vitus.
On January 1, 2006, St. Vith had a total ...
,
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...
,
Wipperfürth
310px, Map of the city
250px, Town hall
Wipperfürth () is a municipality in the Oberbergischer Kreis of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, about 40 km north-east of Cologne, and the oldest town in the Bergischen Land.
History
The eldest d ...
,
Wuppertal
Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and to ...
,
Xanten
Xanten (, Low Rhenish: ''Santen'') is a town in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the district of Wesel.
Xanten is known for the Archaeological Park, one of the largest archaeological open air museums in the wor ...
,
and many more.
Rheinische Dokumenta was designed to be easily readable for dialect speakers educated in German writing, but there are some differences that make it quite distinct from the usual ways of writing the dialects: There is no doubling of consonants to mark short vowels, and there are extra
diacritical mark
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacritic ...
s. The German letters and are spelled and , German is spelled when it indicates a pronunciation, German is spelled . These spellings appear in other Germanic languages as well, but Rhinelanders are generally not accustomed to them.
Letters
The Rheinische Dokumenta uses the
letters
Letter, letters, or literature may refer to:
Characters typeface
* Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet.
* Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...
of today's
ISO basic Latin alphabet
The ISO basic Latin alphabet is an international standard (beginning with ISO/IEC 646) for a Latin-script alphabet that consists of two sets (uppercase and lowercase) of 26 letters, codified in various national and international standards and u ...
, without , , , , , though it has the
digraphs , , ,
trigraph . In addition, the three common
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
Umlauted letters are used: , , , and ten more letters, digraphs, and a trigraph, each having diacritical marks:
:
Each letter, digraph, or trigraph is strictly representing one
phone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into ele ...
. Most letters represent the usual sounds for which they are used in the
German alphabet
German orthography is the orthography used in writing the German language, which is largely phonemic. However, it shows many instances of spellings that are historic or analogous to other spellings rather than phonemic. The pronunciation of alm ...
or, slightly less so, in the
Dutch alphabet
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People ...
or that of the
Luxembourgish language
Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; Luxembourgish: ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide.
As a standard form of th ...
. Several letters are ambiguous in these languages, such as voiced consonants which
lose their voice when appearing at the end of a word. These ambiguities are avoided writing Rheinische Dokumenta; despite the fact that word stems may change their printed appearance, when
declined or
conjugated, always the most phonetically correct letters, digraphs, or trigraphs are being used.
Digraph and trigraph unambiguity
As opposed to
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
, the combination of followed by does not occur in the languages for which Rheinische Dokumenta was made. Thus, since is not otherwise used in Rheinische Dokumenta, both and are unambiguous, especially the underlined letter combinations, and the ones having an arch below.
Only the digraph has some ambiguity. An may occur at the end of a
syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
, but only a few dialects allow a syllable initial (g) after a syllable final . While at syllable joints is frequent in German, most languages that can use Rheinische Dokumenta have or instead in almost all instances. The authors of Rheinische Dokumenta suggest using the single letter
eng instead of the digraph when possible.
Letter case
Though not defined in the original specification,
Peter Honnen
Peter Honnen (born 1954) is a German linguist and specialist researcher of the languages of the Rhineland. He was born in Rheinhausen, Germany.
For years he worked as a scientific staff member at the section for language research of the Insti ...
(presented following the previous works of Fritz Langensiepen
Fritz originated as a German nickname for Friedrich, or Frederick (''Der Alte Fritz'', and ''Stary Fryc'' were common nicknames for King Frederick II of Prussia and Frederick III, German Emperor) as well as for similar names including Fridolin an ...
): ''Rheinische Dokumenta: Lautschrift für Rheinische Mundarten, Mundartdokumentation im Rheinland''. Rheinland-Verlag, Köln, 2nd edition, 1987, upper case letters can be used. While some authors do not use them at all, others start sentences with capitals or capitalise names, and few use capital initial letters on each
substantive
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
and
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
, as
standard German
Standard High German (SHG), less precisely Standard German or High German (not to be confused with High German dialects, more precisely Upper German dialects) (german: Standardhochdeutsch, , or, in Switzerland, ), is the standardized variety ...
writing does.
Accents
Stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
and the
tonal accent
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey empha ...
s are usually ignored when writing in Rheinische Dokumenta. There are
diacritics
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacritic ...
to indicate them, but since they are seen to considerably hamper readability, make prints ugly, and are hardly necessary to facilitate understanding, they are seldom used. Some dialects do not have tonal accent anyway. For the other ones, there are only a very few
word pairs or triplets having identical unaccented Rheinische Dokumenta spellings but different tonal or stress accents.
Also, other
prosody, such as the "melody" of sentence, which carries
semantic
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comput ...
information in many Rheinisch languages,
[Ferdinand Münch: .]
https://archive.org/stream/grammatikderrip00mngoog#page/n18/mode/1up (November 5, 2009) is not preserved in Rheinische Dokumenta writing.
Vowels
Vowels come in two variants, short and long. That many dialects feature three distinct vowel lengths is ignored, as doing so does not create any ambiguities and makes reading easier. Short vowels are represented by single letters, long vowels are represented by the same letters doubled to indicate lengthening.
Monophthongs
Rheinische Dokumenta can write 25 monophthongs.
Short monophthongs
There are 14 short vowels in the languages that the script was designed for, 13 of which are representable in Rheinische Dokumenta:
The "e̩" is , a
schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
. There is no long version of "e̩". Although a schwa usually cannot carry word accent or stress, in some dialects there are exceptions. Words having only schwas do have their stress on schwas, and they can receive the main stress within a sentence as well. The
Colognian
Colognian or Kölsch (; natively ''Kölsch Platt'') is a small set of very closely related dialects, or variants, of the Ripuarian group of dialects of the Central German group. These dialects are spoken in the area covered by the Archdiocese ...
word (in Rheinische Dokumenta writing) is an example.
= The schwa "e̩r"
=
There is another schwa. It does not have a corresponding
grapheme
In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system.
The word ''grapheme'' is derived and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called ''graphemics' ...
in Rheinische Dokumenta. It could be noted in
IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA may also refer to:
Organizations International
* Insolvency Practitioners ...
as an unstressed short , in some dialects and positions also as an unstressed short . Some publications call it a "vocalic r". It is almost always followed by a
glottal stop
The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
. Glottal stops are not noted in Rheinische Dokumenta, even though they are
phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
s occasionally having
minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, spoken or signed, that differ in only one phonological element, such as a phoneme, toneme or chroneme, and have distinct meanings. They are used to demonstrate th ...
s and a length attribute. Since this schwa almost always corresponds to the digraph "er" ending a word or a separable syllable prefix of Standard German orthography, most users of Rheinische Dokumenta positionally print "er", or "e̩r", respectively, for increased readability in an attempt of courtesy towards their readers who read German more fluently than Rheinische Dokumenta. From the standpoint of phonological writing, this is incorrect.
Long monophthongs
There are 12 long vowels. For each short vowel with the exception of the
schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
"e̩", there is a corresponding long vowel:
Diphthongs
In Rheinische Dokumenta, diphthongs are simply denoted as a sequence of the two monophthongs heard and spoken jointly. For instance, the English word "
boy
A boy is a young male human. The term is commonly used for a child or an adolescent. When a male human reaches adulthood, he is described as a man.
Definition, etymology, and use
According to the ''Merriam-Webster Dictionary'', a boy is "a ...
" would be spelled: "bǫi" in Rheinische Dokumenta. There are occasions, when two monophthongs need to be written together without forming a diphthong; that means they are pronounced separately with either a
glottal stop
The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
or an intervocalic joiner consonant "j" in between. There is no written distinction between these cases, although it is not forbidden to write the character "j" for clarity. The number of diphthongs existing in a dialect is far less than each possible combination of two vowels, thus there are not very many ambiguities when taking syllable structure into account.
Assimilation and
coarticulation Coarticulation in its general sense refers to a situation in which a conceptually isolated speech sound is influenced by, and becomes more like, a preceding or following speech sound. There are two types of coarticulation: ''anticipatory coarticulat ...
are predominant in most of the languages written using Rheinische Dokumenta, thus diphthong
articulation may deviate somewhat from the articulation of the isolated monophthongs. Also, depending on languages, the lengths of their diphthongs may vary considerably between the extremes of as short as a typical short monophthong to longer than the sum of two long monophthongs. Varying lengths of diphthongs are not noted in Rheinische Dokumenta, which at least does not create ambiguities within a dialect.
Other
There are no triphthongs, although diphthongs can be followed by schwas in some languages. If, for instance, Rheinische Dokumenta was used in writing
Westphalian, triphthongs would be written in a manner analogous to the diphthongs, using three adjacent letters of vocals.
Consonants
Since most dialects follow the
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
, and
Lower Franconian
Low Franconian, Low Frankish, NetherlandicSarah Grey Thomason, Terrence Kaufman: ''Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics'', University of California Press, 1991, p. 321. (Calling it "Low Frankish (or Netherlandish)".)Scott Shay ...
, rule of
final-obstruent devoicing
Final-obstruent devoicing or terminal devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as Catalan, German, Dutch, Breton, Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Turkish, and Wolof. In such languages, voiced obstruents in final p ...
, voiced consonants cannot, or hardly ever, appear at the end of a word or sentence. This is one of the major differences between Rheinische Dokumenta and Standard German writing, since Standard German orthography tries to keep word
stem
Stem or STEM may refer to:
Plant structures
* Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang
* Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure
* Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...
s unaltered, even if pronunciation varies with suffixes, endings, or
phonological rules. If there is
assimilation or other
sandhi
Sandhi ( sa, सन्धि ' , "joining") is a cover term for a wide variety of sound changes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. Examples include fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of one sound depending on near ...
across word boundaries which yields a consonant voiced at a word end, some authors write them as
contractions or join the words with a
dash
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...
"-" to avoid having final voiced consonants.
Unvoiced plosives
Voiced plosives
Nasals
Though some dialects vary the duration of nasal consonants considerably, they are not doubled to indicate extended length when written, while vocals are. Though this never creates ambiguities within a language, comparison of languages is less supported. A good argument against doubling is that often nasal durations depend on speaker, style of speech, and
prosody rather than being a characteristic of a word or a dialect, although that is not always so.
The letter
eng (
ŋ
) is recommended rather than the
ng
digraph when technically feasible. This recommendation is not always followed in an attempt to create prints closer resembling Standard German or Dutch. Though the phoneme cannot appear at the beginning of a syllable, upper case glyphs exist for
all caps
In typography, all caps (short for "all capitals") refers to text or a font in which all letters are capital letters, for example: "THIS TEXT IS IN ALL CAPS". All caps may be used for emphasis (for a word or phrase). They are commonly seen in ...
and
small caps
In typography, small caps (short for "small capitals") are characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters (capitals) but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. This is technicall ...
print.
Liquids or approximants
Some dialects vary the duration of liquids. With the exception of
Ripuarian dialects, this is hardly a characteristic of words, but prosodic. It is not noted when writing Rheinische Dokumenta.
There is no distinction between the different
phone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into ele ...
s represented by
l
, and
r
. They are nearly
allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
s; most often a specific dialect uses one, but not the other phone of a pair.
Both
ṛ
, and
ṙ
, are rarely used since these sounds occur in few dialects only.
Voiced fricatives
The letter
z
is recommended to be used as a replacement of
ṣ
, when
ṣ
is technically not available. This resembles the use of
z
in Dutch writing.
Unvoiced fricatives
The variations
Sch
, and
Ch
, are used for
title case
Title case or headline case is a style of capitalization used for rendering the titles of published works or works of art in English. When using title case, all words are capitalized, except for minor words (typically articles, short prepositions ...
, while
SCH
, and
CH
, are used for
all caps
In typography, all caps (short for "all capitals") refers to text or a font in which all letters are capital letters, for example: "THIS TEXT IS IN ALL CAPS". All caps may be used for emphasis (for a word or phrase). They are commonly seen in ...
and
small caps
In typography, small caps (short for "small capitals") are characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters (capitals) but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. This is technicall ...
.
Few West- and Central
Ripuarian languages
Ripuarian ( ; also ''Ripuarian Franconian''; german: Ripuarisch, , ''ripuarische Mundart, ripuarischer Dialekt, ripuarisch-fränkische Mundart, Ribuarisch'', nl, Ripuarisch , ''Noordmiddelfrankisch'') is a German dialect group, part of the We ...
, most notably
Colognian
Colognian or Kölsch (; natively ''Kölsch Platt'') is a small set of very closely related dialects, or variants, of the Ripuarian group of dialects of the Central German group. These dialects are spoken in the area covered by the Archdiocese ...
, have the non-
allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
s and
[Whether or not the ]IPA
IPA commonly refers to:
* India pale ale, a style of beer
* International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation
* Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound
IPA may also refer to:
Organizations International
* Insolvency Practitioners ...
glyph really is the correct notation is disputable, see voiceless palatal-velar fricative
The ''sj''-sound ( sv, sj-ljudet ) is a voiceless fricative phoneme found in most dialects of the sound system of Swedish. It has a variety of realisations, whose precise phonetic characterisation is a matter of debate, but which usually featur ...
. Both are written
sch
in Rheinische Dokumenta. The associated
phone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into ele ...
s are to a large extent positionally distinguishable and clearly
articulated
An articulated vehicle is a vehicle which has a permanent or semi-permanent pivot joint in its construction, allowing it to turn more sharply. There are many kinds, from heavy equipment to buses, trams and trains. Steam locomotives were someti ...
differently. Nevertheless they are acoustically hard to distinguish, in part due to
coarticulation Coarticulation in its general sense refers to a situation in which a conceptually isolated speech sound is influenced by, and becomes more like, a preceding or following speech sound. There are two types of coarticulation: ''anticipatory coarticulat ...
, at times even for natives. So the designers of Rheinische Dokumenta choose to consider their differentiation unnecessary or marginal.
Typographical considerations
Rheinische Dokumenta has several
diacritical mark
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacritic ...
s, some of which have their
typographical
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing (leading), and ...
peculiarities.
Umlauts can be seen as their counterparts in German, or
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...
, typography.
The "
central hook below", which is being used to denote openness of the vowels ą̈, ǫ, ǫ̈. respectively, could be confused with the
ogonek
The (; Polish: , "little tail", diminutive of ) is a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet used in several European languages, and directly under a vowel in several Native American languages. It i ...
. In fact, it is different. While the ogonek is to be placed somewhat off the optical center of the glyph it goes with, the Rheinische Dokumenta hook explicitly goes to its center. Thus it gives another impression and does not resemble the ogonek. Most Rheinische Dokumenta prints choose it to be slightly more angular, longer, and thus appear bolder than ogoneks usually are.{{Citation needed, date=May 2019
The "
center dot below" may not always be available. Using
z
as a replacement for
ṣ
is recommended in such cases, resembling Dutch writing. There are no such replacements or recommendations for the letters
ạ
, and
ṛ
, respectively, which are comparatively much less used.
When the "
horizontal bar below" is not available, using the glyph
ə
as a replacement for
e̩
, when possible, is recommended in such cases.
The phoneme denoted by
ŋ
in print, alternately spelt
ng
, never appears at the beginning of a syllable, word, or sentence. Yet its upper case version could be used in
all caps
In typography, all caps (short for "all capitals") refers to text or a font in which all letters are capital letters, for example: "THIS TEXT IS IN ALL CAPS". All caps may be used for emphasis (for a word or phrase). They are commonly seen in ...
or
small caps
In typography, small caps (short for "small capitals") are characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters (capitals) but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. This is technicall ...
type.
The two variations of
sch
, and the three variations of
ch
, when written in
title case
Title case or headline case is a style of capitalization used for rendering the titles of published works or works of art in English. When using title case, all words are capitalized, except for minor words (typically articles, short prepositions ...
, usually have only their 1st character uppercased, when used in all caps or small caps, however, each letter is converted to upper case.
Unicode
Rheinische Dokumenta cannot currently be fully written in
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
but proposals are underway to have missing pieces added.
Rheinische Dokumenta is part of the Latin character set of Unicode, and thus part of its Basic Multilingual
Plane (Unicode)
In the Unicode standard, a plane is a continuous group of 65,536 (216) code points. There are 17 planes, identified by the numbers 0 to 16, which corresponds with the possible values 00–1016 of the first two positions in six position hexadecimal ...
. It is to a large extent covered by single
code point
In character encoding terminology, a code point, codepoint or code position is a numerical value that maps to a specific character. Code points usually represent a single grapheme—usually a letter, digit, punctuation mark, or whitespace—but ...
s. While unaccented characters do that anyway, even some of the characters having
diacritical mark
A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacritic ...
s nevertheless occupy only one character position in a text stream in their
normalized form.
References
External links
Unicode combining diacritials
Phonetic alphabets
German phonology
Latin alphabets
Rhineland