An Intro to Graflect & a Transliteration Tool
Graflect is a phonetic orthography featured on Aaron Paterson's personal website, MayCXC. It is subtly featural and is capable of rendering a wide variety of accents in English and even other languages. The orthography is included in the Under-ConScript Unicode Registry (UCSUR), and font support is available from creators like Rebecca G. Bettencourt of Kreative Korp in the FairfaxHD font (as seen on page), and in greenstar967's GS Unicode 2.0 font. To date, no public guide mapping Graflect to the IPA has been created. An official guide mapping Graflect to IPA has been posted. My chart is the first resource for this purpose, but consider it outdated and please defer to the official one.
Here is an example paragraph written in Graflect, I hope my voice comes through.
SLUG: A Romanization for Graflect
To make Graflect easier to type and discuss on systems without the proper font support, this guide proposes SLUG: Standardized Latin Understudies for Graflect. The goal is to provide a mapping from Graflect symbols to easily-typed glyphs. This version uses common letters, digraphs, and a few diacritics available on most keyboards.
Transliteration Tool
In the program.launcher, you can find a tool to transliterate any text to Graflect. Initially, the tool was meant to function by applying a set of grapheme-to-phoneme rules for substitution, but pre-empting every possible conversion would be absurd and self defeating. Since Graflect has phonetic capabilities, it only makes sense to use them. That's why this tool is mostly just a customizable dictionary system. It comes with a small default dictionary based on my accent, but when the tool encounters a word or sound combination with multiple possible pronunciations (like the "ch" in "chase" vs. "loch"), it will prompt you for the correct choice. By saving your choices, you can build a personal dictionary that accurately reflects your own accent. Use the "Manage Dictionaries" button inside the tool to view, edit, import, and export your custom word lists, which can help you to learn reading and writing in Graflect. If you translate anything cool, please let me know!
Consonants
| Graflect Symbol | IPA Symbol | SLUG | Example Sound |
|---|---|---|---|
| | /p/ | p | p in plan |
| | /b/ | b | b in band |
| | /t/ | t | t in tend |
| | /d/ | d | d in lend |
| | /k/ | k | k in kick, c in cool |
| | /ɡ/ | g | g in gone |
| | /f/ | f | f in fail |
| | /v/ | v | v in vine |
| | /θ/ | th | th in think |
| | /ð/ | dh | th in this |
| | /s/ | s | s in south |
| | /z/ | z | z in zone |
| | /ʃ/ | š | sh in shut |
| | /ʒ/ | ž | s in occasion |
| | /h/ | h | h in home |
| | /m/ | m | m in man |
| | /n/ | n | n in north |
| | /ŋ/ | ng | ng in long |
| | /l/ | l | l in lend |
| | /r/ | r | r in rope (American R) |
| | /w/ | w | w in woman |
| | /j/ | y | y in your |
Vowels
| Graflect Symbol | IPA Symbol | SLUG | Example Sound |
|---|---|---|---|
| | /iː/ | ī | ea in lean |
| | /ɪ/ | i | i in in |
| | /ʊ/ | u | oo in good |
| | /u/ | ü | oo in school |
| | /ɛ/ | e | e in lend |
| | /æ/ | æ | a in accent |
| | /ʌ/ or /ə/ | x | u in tug (also used for schwa) |
| | /ɑ/ | á | o in soft |
| | /eɪ/ | ē | a in game |
| | /ɛə/ | ä | a in ant |
| | /aɪ/ | ai | ye in bye |
| | /aʊ/ | ow | ou in south |
| | /oʊ/ | ō | o in home |
| | /ɔ/ | õ | o in hole |
| | /ɜː/ | ö | ur in nurse but with a British Accent |
| | /ɛər/ | 4 | air in air |
Other Symbols (Affricates, Non-English & Compounds)
| Graflect | IPA | SLUG | Example / Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| | /tʃ/ | c | chase |
| | /dʒ/ | j | jump |
| | /ju/ | yu | you |
| | /wi/ | wī | we |
| | /ɥi/ | yh | French: huit |
| | /x/ | kh | German: Bach |
| | /ɾ/ | rr | Spanish: pero |
| | /ʁ/ | rh | German: Rammstein |
