Domari language

In 2012, Yaron Matras used such a system in his recent publications on this subject where the Pan-Vlakh orthography served as a basis, with several modifications:

• Romani j changed to y
• Romani c use limited to the accented form č for /tʃ/, the /dʒ/ counterpart being denoted by dž
• Doubled vowel letters for long vowels (aa ee ii oo uu)
• Diphthongs denoted with vowel pairs (ai au ei eu oi and so on ... )
• Additional letters in use for Semitic-derived words and names (ḍ ḥ ṣ ṭ ẓ ġ q ‘ ’ and so on ... )

A new Semitic-flavored Latin-based pan-alphabet has recently been introduced by some scholars for the purpose of codifying written Domari.

The Pan-Domari Alphabet, which was invented in 2015, is a Semitic-flavored simplification of the previous Matras notation:

• Y is used for /j/, and w for /w/—like in English
• X is used for the sound /x/—the well-known guttural {kh} of Greek, Russian, and Middle Eastern languages
• Q stands for /q/, the uvular plosive sound heard in the Semitic languages
• Circumflexes are used to mark long vowels <â ê î ô û> and certain fricative/affricate consonants <ĉ ĝ ĵ ŝ ẑ> (={ch gh j sh zh})
• Underdots under letters represent pharyngeal(-ized) consonants <ḍ ḥ ṣ ṭ ẓ> (IPA /d̪ˤ ħ sˤ t̪ˤ zˤ/)
• Other letters include þ (thorn) and ð (edh) for the interdental fricatives /θ ð/, the characters <ʾ> (ʾalef/hamzaʾ—IPA /ʔ/) and <ʿ> (ʿayn—IPA /ʕ/), and the letter <ə> for the vowel sound shəwaʾ.
• The diphthongs are now denoted by vowel + approximant digraphs <ay aw ey ew oy ... >.

The Pan-Domari Alphabet is shown in this table:

NOTES

§ Spelling alternates are shown for certain of these sounds (i.e.: when typing on an ASCII or typeweriter keyboard, or when/where computers cannot show the proper accented Domari letters); these alternates are also used on the KURI's Learn Domari article series.

¹ The letter fe may be sounded either as a labiodental /f/ or a bilabial [ɸ] fricative, depending on the context, or origin of a given word/name.

² The letter ĝe usually represents a voiced velar fricative /ɣ/, but may be sounded as a velarolaryngeal [ʁ] in words/names derived from Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu.

³ The letter ne usually represents a voiced dental nasal /n̪/; however, it manifests as a velar [ŋ] before the letters g ĝ k q x, but as a palatal [ɲ] before the letters ĉ ĵ y.

⁴ The letter re represents a flapped [ɾ] or a trilled [r] rhotative resonant continuant, depending on the position within a word/name, and whether it appears singly or doubly.

⁵ The letter ve shows up mainly in words and names derived from foreign loans, and may represent either a voiced labiodental /v/ or a voiced bilabial [β] fricative.

⁶ The letter xe (pronounced as KHEH) usually represents a voiceless velar fricative /x/, but usually is sounded as a velarolaryngeal /χ/ one in scores of loan words/loan names which are derived from Arabic, Farsi, and Urdu.

⁷ The vowel letter called ŝǝwaʾ (its name derives from the cognate Hebrew vowel point for this very same sound) represents the mean-mid central spread neutral vowel as it exists in the English words about, taken, pencil, lemon, and circus. While its normal manifestation is indeed [ə], it may vary in the direction of either a higher-mid [ʌ] or a fronted lower-mid [ɜ] one, depending on the dialect spoken.

• SPECIAL NOTE*: The plain (unaccented) letters c and j are only found in foreign loan words and loan names, as shown in the above table.

There are five main vowel sounds, however this inventory shows the variation and quantity of short vowels. Most are interchangeable with a vowel sound next to it, however all of the sounds produced above are identical to the local Palestinian Arabic (Matras 1999).

Most of these consonants are influenced by Palestinian Arabic such as gemination; however, consonants such as [p], [g], [tʃ] and [h] are not found in the local dialect. There is speculation among linguists that these sounds are considered a part of the pre-Arabic component. Alveopalatal affricates such as [tʃ] and [dʒ] are also consonants that differ in sound from Arabic.[13]

The biggest difference in expression of language between Arabic and Domari is where the stress is placed. Arabic has phoneme-level stress while Domari is a language of word-level stress. The Domari language emphasizes stress on the final syllable, as well as grammatical markers for gender and number. Most nouns, besides proper nouns, adopted from Arabic sound distinct because of the unique stresses in Domari (Matras 1999). Domari is thought to have borrowed a lot of words and grammatical structure from Arabic; however, this is not entirely true. Complex verbs and most core prepositions did not transfer into the realms of grammar of the Domari language. The syntactic typology remains independent of Arabic influence. It also important to note that the numerals used by the Doms were inherited from Kurdish. Even though Domari was influenced by local Arabic, the language also felt the impacts of Kurdish and certain dialects of Iranian in the grammar of the language.[14]