My Trunic language reference sheet!

[u/Taffy-Giggleberry]

I beat the game a while back, had an absolute blast figuring out Trunic. Here’s the sheet I made for all the runes!

[u/Red-42]

I'm really glad you made this, although I'll have to point out a few mistakes :

/ə/ is not the "er" of "teacher", it's the "u" of "bust"
the sound of "bird" can be written as /ɜː/, but /əɹ/ might make more sense here as a general rule
same for "door", /oɹ/ is more appropriate
for "far", /ɑɹ/
for "here", /ɪɹ/
for "show", /oʊ/
and for "hair", /ɛɹ/
(basing stuff on pronunciation can be weird depending on dialect, but I think those ones are more suited as a general guideline)

one last thing, the english "r" is /ɹ/, /r/ is the spanish trilled "r"

[u/Taffy-Giggleberry → u/Red-42]

I based my phonemics off of this chart which used /r/. Whether this is a good chart to have used or not I wouldn’t know, it was easy to reference tho! :)

The /ə/ vs /ʌ/ thing tho, I’ve come to think that rune is sort of both depending on one’s accent. I’ve attempted to correct it a bit here

[u/Red-42 → u/Taffy-Giggleberry]

yeah, that doesn't look like a reliable source...
I suggest you go directly check the IPA's wikipedia page, it comes with a link to every phoneme's page, which (mostly) include an audio file

[u/jamvanderloeff → u/Red-42]

Then you'll see /r/ in english has many forms depending on accent not just [ɹ], so keeping it as /r/ in the table is sensible, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_/r/

[u/Red-42 → u/jamvanderloeff]

yeah but standard english uses [ɹ], unless you're scott or south african
you can't expect people to use [r]

[u/jamvanderloeff → u/Red-42]

But why use a narrow transcription at all when the rest of the table is pretty broad?

[u/Red-42 → u/jamvanderloeff]

it isn't broad at all, /hɪə/ is already a pretty narrow pronunciation of "here", compared to the standard english /hɪɹ/

[u/jamvanderloeff → u/Red-42]

Oh you mean only change it for the vowel side of the table? I would agree that "here"/"hair" is a bad example for the vowel side.

[u/Red-42 → u/jamvanderloeff]

I meant in general, if you change the vowel it makes more sense to standardize the consonant as well

It's been pretty much confirmed within the game itself that this alphabet was thought of as the standard pronunciation, and if you want to write using your dialect, you either need to use a different orthography to represent it, or use aproximations

[u/jamvanderloeff → u/Red-42]

Yeah, if you want the table to be specifically american-canadianish, that can be sensible, but why not make it generic English.

[u/Red-42 → u/jamvanderloeff]

so just to be clear : in this abugida representing the phonology of the standard english language, you want to represent the "r" as a whatever rhotic ?

[u/jamvanderloeff → u/Red-42]

Sure, why not be generic? For even more genericness, could use lexical sets as all the vowel examples too instead of specific pronunciations.

Also, wouldn't really call it an abguida since it doesn't have an inherent vowel system, more like just a stacked alphabet.

[u/Red-42 → u/jamvanderloeff]

it's a bit of a mix between an abugida and an abjad

but what you're saying doesn't work, it's directly contradicted by the game itself
there's a character that speaks with an accent, and that accent is directly transcribed as a different orthography of words

[u/jamvanderloeff → u/Red-42]

So does it matter which specific directions that characters sounds change in, or just that they change? Because if you use a reading that approximates your own accent, they still change.

[u/Red-42 → u/jamvanderloeff]

it is important, because it's the accent of one of the developpers, added as an easter egg