NAVLIPI

The World’s First (and Only) Truly Phonemic Alphabet

NAVLIPI USER GUIDE

NAVLIPI (see https://navlipi.org/ ) is a new (2012) universal alphabet (script) usable for ALL the world’s languages. Based on the Latin (Roman) alphabet, it uses the 26 letters of this alphabet as used for English, plus just 20 others, for a total of 45 letters. (A few examples of the other letters are ⱡ, h_o, ŧ, ր and Ω.) NAVLIPI uses the Latin alphabet phonetically, much as in the original Latin and modern Spanish. It is a highly phonetic alphabet, with 1-to-1 correspondence of letters with sounds. NAVLIPI is pronounced exactly as it is written. NAVLIPI is very user-friendly. NAVLIPI is also a phonemic* (*for definitions, see: ABCs Of Phonetics And Phonemics For The Non-Linguist page) alphabet — it claims to be the only world alphabet which encodes and shows phonemic information. With its 45 letters, NAVLIPI accurately represents ALL the world’s languages, including tonal ones like Mandarin and click languages of South Africa. NAVLIPI uses no accent marks. NAVLIPI does distinguish between lower and upper case (capital) letters. Compare to the alphabet of the International Phonetic Association (IPA), which has 174 letters, does not encode or show phonemic information, and is difficult to keyboard. NAVLIPI also has a very simple keyboard. Free keyboard Apps are available for Android (phone/tablet, Google Play Store), iOS (iPhone/iPad, Apple Store), Windows PC and Apple Mac (https://navlipi.org/) “Why NAVLIPI?!”. Because without encoding phonemic info, it is difficult or impossible to write, say, Mandarin and English, or Hindi and Tamil, in the same alphabet. NAVLIPI is starting to be used for documenting endangered languages, including in India and Australia, and as a bridge alphabet within the Indian linguistics community. It is also usable in Natural Language Processing and Computational Linguistics.

SOME BASICS OF NAVLIPI

Long vowels: By reduplication. Thus (NAVLIPI letters in red bold):
- short i (as in English hit), Hindi इ; long ii (English heat , Hindi ई);
- short u (English put , Hindi उ); long uu (English boot , Hindi ऊ);
- short e (English pet), long ee (English fair, vowel in Hindi है).

Some other common vowels:
- a(as in English but, Hindi अ).
- aa(long vowel, English father, Hindi आ, Malayalam ആ).
- aa_o(short version of previous vowel, as used in many Dravidian languages, e.g. Malayalam അ).
- ε(English gray, Hindi ए, Spanish que). Vs. e (English pet).
- ɔ(inverted-c, English Jack).
- Ω (English ball). Vs. o (English gold)
- q(English about, 2nd vowel in Hindi यन्त्र).
- y(French tu, German ȕber).

Some common non-vowels:
- j(English yes, Hindi य).
- ƪ(inverted-j, English Jack Hindi ज).
- c(Spanish chica Hindi च).
- shᵩ(English shoot Hindi श).
- zhᵩ(English pleasure).
- tt (t-sound of English, West European (but not Spanish), languages, “alveolar”***).
- dt (d–sound of English, West European (but not Spanish) languages, “alveolar”***).
- ŧ, ŧhₒ, đ, đhₒ, ր, l (Hindi/Marathi/Sanskrit ट, ठ, ड, ढ, ण, ळ; t-, d– n-, l-and related sounds of Indian languages where the tongue is curled back—“retroflex”*** , मूर्धन्य)).

Nasals:
- As tilde symbol (~); place after syllable being nasalized. Thus (NAVLIPI in red): Hindi हाां haa~; Portuguese Saõ Saao~.

Qualifiers placed after the letter they qualify:
- h_o indicates aspiration (extra breath, महाप्राण). So k (Hindi क) becomes kh_o (ख) etc.
- hᵩ indicates fricatization*** (frictional or roughing or hissing sound, as in sssss, hhhhhh, ffffffff). So (NAVLIPI in red): English (British/American pronunciation) thin thᵩin; this dhᵩ (Respectively, dental consonants t and d, with fricative*** qualifier hᵩ, become thᵩ and dhᵩ.)

Examples of common phonemic*** renditions:
- b_∞ represents both p (unvoiced***) and b (voiced***) in Mandarin, since it can be pronounced as either, and substituting one for the other does not change the meaning of a word in common Mandarin (pu and bu both mean “no/not”).
- vw represents both v and w sounds in Hindi and many other Indian languages, since substituting one for the other does not change the meaning of a word in these languages (van and wan both mean “forest” in Hindi).
- ph₈ for both the f, and the ph_o (aspirated-p) sounds in Hindi and many other languages; substituting one for the other does not change the meaning of a word in these languages (e.g. in Hindi, fal and ph_oal both mean “fruit”).

Some other vowels:
- ȓ Vowel (vocalic) r-sound of Indian and some Slavic languages (ऋ).
- o//as in French feuille.
- o/German schön.

Some other non-vowels:
- ŧ. đ. ր. Respectively ट. ड. ण. of Hindi (“taps” or “flaps”, where the tongue is lightly tapped).
- ⱡ (Tamil ழ , Malayalam ഴ, Latin transcription usually zh. Retroflex l–like sound.)
- x, ƹ as in, respectively, Hindi ख़, ग़; and, respectively, German doch, Arabic غريب (ğariib, voiced). (These are, respectively, unvoiced and voiced velar fricatives.)

TONES: Examples of transcription of tones (again with qualifiers or “tone marks” placed after the syllable they apply the tone to); shown, illustratively, for Mandarin only:
- | (1^st Mandarin tone, high and level.)
- ´ (2^nd Mandarin tone, rising.)
- `´ (3^rd Mandarin tone, falling-rising.)
- ` (4^th Mandarin tone, falling.)
  - Examples, Chinese-Simplified Transcription:
    - tthᵩie| tthᵩie| nii`´ (谢谢你 , “thank you”).
    - ch_oi| faan` ( 吃饭 , “eat a meal”).

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