Henua transliterations
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Arero Henua is written in roñoroño (rongorongo), but it has been transliterated into the three great trans-Pacific scripts: Roman, Cana, and Cyrillic. Since Henua has so few sounds and a simple syllabic structure, it is relatively easy to represent in foreign scripts.
Romanization (Ta Romana)
The consonants /h/, /k/, /m/, /n/, /p/, /r/, /t/, and /v/ are written with the usual Latin letters. The sound /?/ (glottal stop) is indicated with an apostrophe. The vowels /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/, as well as the dipthongs, are written as you might expect.
The consonant /ɲ/ (the palatal nasal, or /J/ in Sampa) is written <ñ> (n-tilde) in the official romanization. The sound closely approximates the sound in the Castilian señor. However, English speakers should not try to reproduce the "ny" sound that they use for Castilian. A better approximation is a velar nasal (/ŋ/, or in Sampa /N/), the sound heard in the English word sing. For that reason, many works in English and French use <ng> to represent that sound. Scholarly sources stick to <ñ>. *Here*, the letter <g> is used to represent the same sound. In Ill Bethisad, the practice of using the letter <ñ> was begun by Castilian-speaking traders and missionaries in the 19th century. There was already a precedent in the Balagtas Alphabet used in the Philippines, also invented for use by Castilian speakers.
When a word's stress is not on the penultimate syllable, an accute accent <á é í ó ú> is used, not a macron as *here*. Again, this is due to the Castilian influence.
Cana (Ta Nihone, た にほね)
Japan established an official Catacana for Henua soon after creating the protectorate (1876). It follows the basic pattern used for Kanawikian and Togan. See Cana and Japanese.
Syllables beginning with /h/, /k/, /m/, /n/, /p/, /r/, and /t/ use the regular corresponding rows of the Cana table. /v/ uses the b-row. /ɲ/ (palatal nasal) uses the g-row, mimicking the cana for /ŋ/ (velar nasal) in the Togan language. Glottal stop syllables are written with the pure vowel cana, while pure vowels are written with the w-row. This is the same system used for Kanawikian.
The Chōonpu is used to show irregular stress, but usually only in scholarly writing.
Cyrillization (Ta Kurira, Та Курира)
The official Cyrillicization of Henua was only established recently, when Oregon and Henua began closer relations with one another.
Most vowels and consonants are cyrillized in the normal fashion. The glottal stop is an apostrophe. Special cases:
/h/ is written <x> (kha).
/ɲ/ (palatal nasal) is written <ң> (the "ng" or "n-descender"). This letter originally comes from the Turkestani Cyrillic alphabet. The details of Oregonian Cyrillic remain unclear, so there may be a digraph that is used informally in Oregon.
Irregular stress is indicated with acute accents, as in the Ta Romana.
Status
During and after the Protectorate period, the cana was extremely popular with Henua's growing middle class and was the island's dominant script. After the 1931 writing reform and the creation of Reformed Roñoroño (Ta Ho'ou), literacy in the new native script became a requirement for citizenship and was taught widely. Because of this, the cana became merely the most common foreign script.
Today, Ta Nihone is taught to all students in primary school, while Ta Romana is taught to some upper-level students who request it. Te Kurira is taught, but interest is much lower. Around 90% of literate native-born Tañata Henua can read Cana; around 40% can read Henua in Latin letters and 5-10% can read Cyrillic.
Cana and Latin letters are authorized for legal documents in which one party is a non-citizen. Roñoroño remains the only official script, however. Cyrillic has no official status on the island. Naturalized foreigners tend to know Henua in both their home script and roñoroño. In other words, Japanese immigrants can typically read Henua in cana and in roñoroño.
て ぴと お て へぬわ
