The Ekronean script has 22 letters and is an real alphabet - which means it has written vowels instead of only consonants. Initially, they wrote their language as a boustrophedon, but later they settled for a left-to-write system, and influenced the Israelite script. This language emerged as the Philistines mixed ancient Aegean languages with a Canaanite dialect spoken in the southern Levant. This alphabet has 3 written vowels and 19 written consonants, and is a direct descendant of the Phoenician alphabet, just like any other Geloan language. However, its phonetic inventory is a little bigger, containing 31 phonemes, being /ks/ one of them.
Below there is a table with all 22 letters. The pronounciation is marked using the IPA. Note that there are letters that carry more than one possible phoneme. Also, there is a letter for the "ks" pair of phoneme, similar to the "ksadi" from Israelite.
Table 1: Ekroneke letters
In the table above, whenever there are two phonemes separated by a comma, it means that the letter has two possible phonemes: the first one is its usual sound, and the second phoneme is to be pronounced in special cases. There are rules to when a consonant changes its phoneme: when they are placed after a voiced consonant, then they also change to a voiced phoneme. For example, when x comes after d or z, it sounds ʒ instead of ʃ. The voiceless p becomes a voiced b when preceded by m.
Also, the strong syllable is marked by adding a diacritical mark over the vowel, which also change it from a closed to an open vowel.
There is a letter that marks a glotal stop. This is used when there are two vowels coming one right after another. This is a feature absorbed from its interactions with Canaanite and Yisrelit languages.
Table 2: Example of voiced and unvoiced groupings
There are rules to when a consonant changes its phoneme: when they are placed after a voiced or a nasal consonant, then they also change to a voiced phoneme. For example, when /ʃ/ comes after /d/ or /z/, it changes into /ʒ/. Also, the phonemes become voiced when at the beginning of a word or in between vowels; exception to this rule is /k/, which remains /k/ even between vowels.
Tonicity of a syllable The patterns for the tonicity of a syllable are (marked in
red).
· Oxytones: (…)C/'ej/
(always written with a diacritic); (C)/e/(C)C/'o/(C);
(C)/a/(C)C/'o/(C); (…)C/'ɑt/; (…)C/'on/
(always written with a diacritic); (…)C/'an/;
(…)C/'em/ and (…)C/'ot/ in all situations.
· Paroxytones: (…)CV(C)C/a/;
(C)V(C)C/e/ (always written with a diacritic).
There are a few words that do not comply with the
rules above, so the tonicity is marked with a diacritic.
