The Arangothian Alphabet

Overview of the Arangothek Script

Characters in the Arangothian script combine a "stem" and one or more "mark" strokes. A consonant mark being placed at the bottom of a stem, and that of a vowel being placed at the top. The stem of a character can include both a vowel and consonant to create a syllable. The script distinguishes the following characters:

• 6 Singular vowels
• 16 Singular consonants
• 80 Syllabic consonant-Vowel Unions
• 13 Archaic and/or loan characters
  • Of which includes characters meant for pronunciation/transliteration of other languages
  • The rare union DX is included to approximate a J sound
  • The archaic VE character has been replaced by the more standardized union of V and E in all modern publications

The Arangothian script indicates a new word by placing a gessi marker (.) over the stem of the initial character. Doubled consonants are indicated by a laltom mark (-) written above the character. The sonk marker (||) placed between sentences written in sequence indicates a full stop and is omitted for singular sentences or phrases.

The Arangothek Script

The following table demonstrates the complete Arangothek alphabet coupled with the appropriate romanization of the characters. Normally unused, archaic or loan characters are separated as are the 6 singular vowels.

The Arangothek script

Reading Arangothek

The G in the Arangothian script is always pronounced hard; the letters DX represent a J or soft G sound. It is sometimes written as a compound character that combines the marks for D and X onto a single stem. There is no distinguishable difference of the K, C and CK phonemes in Arangothek thus facilitating the use of K in all instances of the referenced characters.

The vowel OTH is used exclusively at the ending of words and not in any other instance.

In the instance of a doubled consonant followed by a vowel, the appropriate consonant-vowel union is written then marked to indicate a doubled consonant as normal. Below, the phrase "Arlok ul-Dorn, Gossath ul Arangoth" (Arlok, son of Dorn, King of Arangoth) demonstrates this and appropriate use of the gessi diacritc.

Arlok ul-Dorn, Gossath ul-Arangoth

(Broken down, the characters in the above image read: A-R-LO-K U-L DO-R-N GO-SSA-TH U-L A-RA-N-GOTH)

Note that Arangothian on its most basic level isn't written in the Latin alphabet but in a script of its own. What that means is that there is no official romanization of Arangothian words or names.

For an audible idea of the "sound" of spoken Arangothek, try listening to some of the files in the phrasebook.

A further note on pronunciation and spelling

Being that the Arangothian language is a fantasy language, should the pronunciations demonstrated in the sound of "Arangothian" be objectionable other sounds may be substituted.

For example, the sound "X" can be pronounced either as "sh" or "zh" whenever it appears in a word or name. That being the case, "Menshruc" or "Mengerook" are acceptable interpretations of Menxruk. "Nadeesha" or "Nedygea" would also be acceptable interpretations for the feminine name Nedixe.

There is a trend towards male names to frequently end in -TH, and female names in -ESSA. However, the Arangothian language is not an overly gendered one.

Letter Symbology in Arangothian Religion

The character in the Arangothek alphabet that stands for the letter V (the first letter of Van, the word for good) is also used as a symbol in Menxvanic worship, though this is a fairly recent development. Conversely the character for R (the first letter of Ruk, the word for bad) is a common symbol for Menxruk cultists used in opposition of V for "good". Both characters are frequently used in religious jewelry, carved into stone at religious sites, or used in combination with other symbols.