Note: This article is still in pretty rough form. Also, most words in Verentian are not written on these web pages using the transliteration scheme below.

The Verentian Phonetic Alphabet

The work of the scholars of Tirreter was to produce what today we call a phonetic alphabet. Note that the Verentian system does not quite approach the International Phonetic Alphabet, for example. Some sounds the scholars of Tirreter just have not come across.

The Verentians use some fifty-two unique symbols which are arranged in a pattern to form a syllable. The dominant character in each syllabic symbol is the vowel. Consonant symbols, of diminutive size, are artistically arranged to fill the space around the vowel, but also located to indicate whether the consonant occurs before or after the vowel. Consonants can also be chained together.

Vowels

The standard Verentian alphabet has twenty-four vowel sounds. These are transliterated using the following symbols:

Component	VST	Dictionary Symbol		Component	VST	Dictionary Symbol
	h	schwa			u	schwa-stressed
	'	schwa-short			'r	schwa-r
	hr	schwa-r-stressed			a	a
	ae	a-macron			aa	a-dieresis
	ah	a-dot			ao	au-dot
	e	e			y	e-macron
	ee	e-macron-stressed			i	i
	ai	i-macron			o	o-macron
	aw	o-dot			oe	oe
	ue	oe-macron			oi	oi-dot
	ou	u-dieresis			oo	u-dot
	ue	ue			iue	ue-macron

Consonants

To date there are 28 consonant sounds present as standard symbols in the phonetic alphabet. These are presented below:

Component High/Low	VST	Dictionary Symbol		Component High/Low	VST	Dictionary Symbol
	b	b			tsh	ch
	d	d			f	f
	g	g			h	h
	hw	hw			j	j
	c	k			ch	kh
	l	l			m	m
	n	n			nq	n-nasal
	ng	ng			p	p
	r	r			s	s
	sh	sh			t	t
	th	th			dh	th-voiced
	v	v			w	w
	x	k + s			y	y
	z	z			zh	zh

There is a lack of examples at this time, but note that the symbols shown are fairly pristine. In practice the consonants tend to be exaggerated to make their shapes obvious. The "high" symbols occur before the vowel, and tend to attach themselves to the upper left hand corner of the vowel symbol; the "low" symbols are pronounced after the vowel, and attach to the lower right hand corner.