The Abh language has 28 characters called Ath. Only one case exists for each letter. All the official documents of the Empire are written with them but, for the convenience of the grounders, transcription with the Western alphabet is also possible.
Note that the last four letters in the following table have two dots to convert voiceless consonants to voiced ones. This is the same method used in hiragana and katakana of Japanese. Also note some of them (especially "é" and "n") look like a simplified version of hiragana.
Ath | Western Alphabet | Sound |
---|---|---|
a | a | |
i | i | |
u | u | |
é | e | |
o * | o | |
e | ||
c | k | |
s | s | |
t | t | |
l | l | |
n | n | |
h | h | |
p | p | |
f | f, ** | |
m | m | |
ï | j | |
ai | ||
y | y | |
œ | œ | |
r | r | |
ü | w | |
au * | ||
ÿ | ||
eu | ø | |
g | g | |
z | z | |
d | d | |
b | b |
(*) There is some uncertainty about the pronunciation of these two letters. The two official book, "Data Book" and "Readers' Guide", give opposing definitions. The one shown here is by the latter of the two books.
(**) The latter is the traditional pronunciation but, as more grounders joined Abh, the former gradually became more common. Yet the members of the royal family use the former even now.
Special care should be taken for "h", which often changes the pronunciation of the consonant that precedes it. These include "mh [f]", "bh [v]", "dh [th (voiced)]", "ch [sh]", "ph [f]", "gh [j, as in 'Japan']", "th [th (silent)]", "nh [as 'gne' in French?]" and "rh [I don't know what the difference between this and a simple "r" is]".
Also there are many silent characters in the Abh language. For example, "ec" at the end of a word is almost always silent. Laburec (The Space Navy) is pronounced like "labboor".