Alphabet

The rook script alphabet consists of 37 letters, 24 consonants and 13 vowels. Each letter corresponds as nearly as possible to one sound in English.

rook	Latin	IPA	example
	p	/p/	pack
	b	/b/	burn
	f	/f/	fox, aphid
	v	/v/	van
	t	/t/	toad, mountain, letter, trick
	d	/d/	due, drink, body
	th	/θ/	thick
	dh	/ð/	that
	k	/k/	cat, king, quiet
	g	/g/	girl
	h	/h/	house
	s	/s/	sunk, rice
	z	/z/	zip, desert
	sh	/ʃ/	show, pressure, notion
	zh	/ʒ/	casual, beige, seizure
	ch	/tʃ/	chirp, feature
	j	/dʒ/	job, age
	m	/m/	mole
	n	/n/	node
	ng	/ŋ/	song, ink
	w	/w/	wet, quill
	r	/ɹ/	round, bird
	l	/l/	loud, full
	y	/j/	yes, fjord
	u	/ʊ/	push, good, could
	ə	/ʌ/, /ə/	but, about, select, edify, comma, mitten, towel, perk, sir, after
	i	/ɪ/	kid, women, busy, music, tablet, sausage, nervous, spotted, churches
	o	/ɑ/	lot, saw, cough, drama, bald, car, sorry
	a	/æ/	sat, hand, laugh
	e	/ɛ/	wet, head
	uu	/u/	lute, hoop, youth, tour
	ou	/ou/	rope, grow, dough, bowl, shore, board, war
	au	/au/	cow, pout
	ii	/i/	sheet, saline, happy, bring, stirring, here, clear
	oi	/ɔi/	boy, coin
	ai	/ai/	bike, dry
	ei	/ei/	plate, great, sail, pang, chair, there, carry, berry

Note that the letter(s) used in standard spelling with the Latin alphabet do not always correspond to the letters used in rook script. In rook script, spelling is determined by sounds alone, with minimal deference to continuity with historical spellings.

Note also that some English speakers may distinguish sounds that rook script does not support. For example, many speakers pronounce the vowels in the words “law|lo” and “lot|lot” differently, but in rook script both are spelled with o. Rook script is explicitly designed around my dialect, and I use the same vowel in both words. Conversely, some speakers may have merged sounds rook script spells separately, as in the words “pen|pen” and “pin|pin”. If you find the spellings unsatisfactory, it is encouraged to adapt them to your own dialect.

Finally, note that in rook script some letters may sound different in some words than others. For example, the rook letter t is used in the words “table|teib·əl” and “battle|bat·əl”, though General American English speakers usually pronounce the /t/ sound differently in the two words. Here one letter is used because a native speaker would consider the sounds to be intuitively equivalent, with the different realizations determined by the context of surrounding sounds. The /t/ sound in particular has many different realizations. One goal of rook script is for determining which realization is correct to be possible using the spelling alone. Future posts will explore how to make sense of them in both reading and writing.

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