Report of the Mikrusian alphabet

1 Introduction People of Earth speak in different languages. There are several hundreds of various languages. Each language is characterized by its own specific set of sounds and by a peculiarity of their articulation. However, there are people that regard their native languages as same ones, live in distant regions, and articulate equal-sense words with some difference. And the difference may be only in a point that some sounds are articulated with a moderate difference. The typical example is a situation with German language natives in different regions of Europe. In spite of this, these people communicate with each other without problems in understanding and they kick the articulation distinction to «accent», «dialect», «patois», or another term. Furthermore, there exist people that articulate individual sounds slightly in a different way in comparison with other “same-language” inhabitants of the same region. Usually this is classified by speech therapists as a speech defect. But this does not lead to problems in understanding such humans “with defect”. This is connected with the following: each listener identifies all “similar” sounds for himself. Our brain acts analogously when it analyzes all sounds in speech. The brain identifies sounds that belong to a certain range; it consider them as equal, as “equivalent”.

1.1 Classification subproblems In spite of such variety of languages, the variety of speech sounds is stipulated and bounded by possibilities of a human vocal apparatus. It has approximately the same possibilities in speech for all people (with rare exceptions of pathologies). The question arises: is it possible to classify sounds that a human vocal apparatus can generate in speech? As for any classification problem, one should solve the following subproblems. First, mark out all more or less different sounds. For this purpose, one should carry out the research for a great number of languages of world’s nationalities and should study what sounds a human is able to articulate in speech and what sounds a human is able to distinguish. An attempt of solution of such problem was done in constructing the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Second, choose so-called equivalence classes among the collected sounds, i.e., decide what sounds we will regard as equal, as equivalent. It turns out that this is not a trivial problem, since different nationalities have different equalizations. For example, in some languages short and prolonged sounds are distinguished, i.e., the sense of a word may depend on the duration of one component sound. And in some languages such division is absent, i.e., a word with a protractedly articulated sound and a word with the same shortly articulated sound are regarded as the same word. There is a liberty in choosing the equivalence classes: we may enlarge or divide classes. What should guide us in this action? The answer is given by the following subproblem: we should be guided by the structure. Third, find a structure of the set of the considered sounds. In strict sense, we should search for a structure not of sounds’ set, rather of the earlier chosen equivalence classes. For example, it can be such that the studied set has a certain “natural” order. Or it is possible to find a certain periodicity in sounds’ structure. Fourth, move off “superfluous” sounds from the consideration and add “forgotten” sounds which were not included in the consideration yet. This operation is actual, especially for the considered problem, since a human doesn’t articulate all possible sounds in speech. Some vocal apparatus possibilities are applied for singing, crying, exclamations. We want but to classify sounds that one may apply in speech for an information transfer. About adding some forgotten sounds: the conclusion, on what should be added, can be made only after an analysis of the constructed structure. Also, it might happen that some classes should be united into one, according to the structure. Mendeleyev’s (D. I. Mendeleev) periodic table of chemical elements is the indicative example of a classification problem solution. We now briefly describe what operations were carried out for the listed subproblems. 1) The set of all known different atoms is the classification object. Here, the term “different” has the following sense: atoms are said to be different if there is any difference in their

1 physical and chemical properties. 2) Isotopes are the equivalence classes. In other words, atoms are said to be equivalent if their nuclei have equal electric charge. (It follows from this definition that nuclear mass and a number of electrons in the atom have no significance for the classification.) Each such class of atoms was called a chemical element. 3) Everybody knows the structure of chemical elements. It is the “periodic system of elements”. However later, it was discovered that there is no periodicity. But the structure of periods and groups in the table remained; in the modified state though. Nowadays, there are two almost equal versions of the structure presentation: http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/periodic/ and http://acswebcontent.acs.org/games/pt.html . 4) The structure of chemical elements, introduced by D. I. Mendeleyev, and an analysis of their atomic mass allowed to predict the existence of elements unknown at that time and some of their physical properties. Concerning the moving off “superfluous” elements: these facts have not entered in the history of the table creation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_periodic_table). In this case, a substance may be considered to be superfluous if initially it was falsely thought as one that consists of a unique sort of atoms. Or substances such that the theory of their existence is refused — phlogiston, caloric substance.

1.2 Why do we need it? Creation of the Mikrusian [mık'rusıən] alphabet was imposed by several reasons and aims. 1) Necessity of putting in order the knowledge about the sounds in human speech. There were attempts of such classification before but an ordered structure wasn’t constructed. The majority of researches in phonetics is devoted to the phonetics of only one particular language which is studied by the researcher. Attempts to research all sounds were reduced to enumerate them, to arrange them in a 2D-table and “dumping a heap”. 2) Simplification of sounds’ designation. In many languages, letters of the Latin alphabet are used. But this is not enough to reflect the whole variety of sounds of whatever language. Therefore diacritical signs are in use (“birds”, “hats”, “strokes”, “dashes”, “points”, etc.) or sounds are denoted by letter combinations. 3) Presence of superfluous letters in the Russian alphabet. Examples: the letters ш and щ denote hard and soft version of one sound; the letter я, placed in the beginning of a word, denotes not one sound but two. 4) Inadequate writing of some words in Russian language. And the speech is not only about words with foreign provenance. There are some shortened and composed words that have to be read in one way according to the rules of reading but are read in another. 5) Creation of a sufficiently universal system of a transliteration. There are needed both the transliteration from the Russian language (exactly from the language, not from the alphabet) to the Latin alphabet and the transliteration between the Russian language and other alphabets and hieroglyph systems.

1.3 What do we already have? The listing of sounds that a human is able to articulate and distinguish was done while creating the International phonetic alphabet (IPA). Its description you may find in http://en.wikipedia.org/. The construction is based on the principle: IPA must not have different letters for two sounds if all known languages do not distinguish them. Further, it will be clear that such a principle is bad for a classification purpose. Vowels are arranged in a separate scheme; consonants are arranged in tables. Let us present the tables of consonant letters and the scheme of vowel letters of IPA.

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It is evident that the tables and the scheme were composed being guided by methods and locations of a sound generation in a vocal apparatus. Further, we will see that the fundamental structure of speech sounds has no relation with sound generation methods. Furthermore, we will see that IPA is a result of an incomplete study and it doesn’t fit all principles declared at its constructing. Note that the set of speech sounds can be splitted more than it is done in IPA. But on some stage of splitting one should stop, since the sounds have to be united into equivalence classes.

1.4 What do we have below? The scheme of the Mikrusian alphabet is given in section 3 of this report. To study this scheme one should know what sound is denoted by each letter. This is easy to determine from the table in section 2. In other sections the alphabet order is shown, variants of lowercase and uppercase letters are given, the description of regularity of the Mikrusian alphabet scheme and of its structure is given, the rules for designation of sounds are described. Definitions are given and constructing principles for the structure of sounds (equivalence classes) are described. In the end, the standard PC-keyboard layout for the Mikrusian alphabet is shown. Let us make an important remark. It is weak-promising to classify everything. The Mikrusian alphabet is not destined to classify all sounds. Some of them were excluded from the consideration in concordance with the idea of the fourth subproblem.

3 2 The table of the Mikrusian alphabet of 30 letters

Letter Hand- Letter Articulate Articulate Latin letters Comment written name like the 1st like chosen combination letter sound in letters in the analogue the word word А а A a а uncle butter a О о O o о obvious shore o У у Y y у uhlan book u I i j i i eat bee i Е е E e е element pencil e И и U u и ih * Russian ы, Ukrainian и. М м M м ем monkey command m Н н H н ен nail dinner n, nh ¹) Р р P p ер r * Greek ρ, Russian р. Л л л л ел lesson building l Б б Б δ бе bottle table b В в B b ве valley novel v П п П n пе pond space p Ф ф Ф ф фе form comfort f D d D d dьi dot cold d ð d ð д ðи this southern dh T t τ t tьi capital t * Greek τ, Russian т. Θ θ O ϑ θи three moth th З з з z зе zoo design z Z z Z z zе vision zh С с C c се salt mistake s S s S s sе short sh Russian ш. Г г T г га ground negative g Y γ ϒ γ γа gh * Greek γ, Ukrainian г. К к K κ ка cup fake k Х х x x ха ham behaviour kh W w w w wа wolf row w J j J j jа yogurt toy y V v v v ра - - ' separates sounds Ь ь ь ь мьа - - x makes soft sounds

4 ¹) Let the combination nh denote the last sound in the English word “ring”. This sound is not represented in the Mikrusian alphabet. Currently, its denotation rule is an open question. You may denote it by the following combination of letters: нь. We emphasize the following example: some Japanese native speakers articulate this sound instead of the sound г. In other words, these sounds are equivalent in the Japanese language. * In many languages there exists an analogue of the sound denoted by the Mikrusian letter р. Often these sounds are denoted by the Latin letter r. One may unite them in one class and denote it by the Mikrusian letter р. The same deal is with the Mikrusian letters л, d, t. The Mikrusian letter g denotes a fricative sound that is denoted by the Greek letter g in the Greek language and by the Ukrainian letter г in the Ukrainian language. Examples: the first sound in the Greek word “γραµµα”, the first sound in the Ukrainian word “газ”. The Mikrusian letter и denotes the last sound in the Russian word “мы” or in the Ukrainian word “ми”.

3 Scheme of the Mikrusian alphabet

3.1 Capital (uppercase) letters A ОУ МН БВ D ð З Z Г Y WJ . IEИ РЛ ПФ T Θ С S КХ V Ь

3.2 Small (lowercase) letters аоу мн бв d d з z г γ wj . i еи р л пф t θ с s кх v ь

4 Types of Mikrusian alphabet letters in the alphabetical order Block-letters: АОУIЕИ МНРЛ БВПФ DðTΘ ЗZCS ГYКХ WJVЬ. аоуiеи мнрл бвпф ddtθ зzcs гγкх wjvь.

Italic: АОУIЕИ МНРЛ БВПФ Dð TΘ ЗZCS ГYКХ WJVЬ. аоуiеи мнрл бвпф dдtθ зzcs гγкх wjvь.

5 Sounds and letters Sounds are denoted not only by one letter but also by a combination of letters. This allows to denote more sounds than the total number of letters in the Mikrusian alphabet. The rules of sounds’ denotation are described below. Initially, let us consider the classification of letters.

5.1 Vowels The following 6 letters are called vowels: А, О, У, I, Е, И. They denote sounds, which are called vowel sounds.

5 5.2 Consonants The following 22 letters are called consonant letters: М, Н, Р, Л, Б, В, П, Ф, D, ð, T, Θ, З, Z, C, S, Г, Y, К, Х, W, J. Sounds that they denote are called consonant sounds. The letters (and sounds) м, н, р, л are called resonant. The letters (and sounds) w, j are called transitional (or equivalently approximants or middle sonants). The rest of 16 consonant letters (sounds) are called dual.

5.3 Auxiliary letters The letters V, Ь are called auxiliary. These letters do not denote any sounds. They modify an articulation of letter combinations.

6 Concept of the construction of the blocks Initially we consider the vowels block. A ОУ

IEИ Let us describe the rule for arranging the letters in the block. Vowels а, о, у are clustered in triplet according to the fact that these sounds can replace each other in words during the natural evolution of a spoken language. The same deal with the sounds i, е, и. Examples: German “Sonne” (зонне) – English “sun” (сан), German “Ball” (баль) – English “ball” (бол), German “voll” (фоль) – English “full” (фул), Russian “шесть” (sесьть) – Ukrainian “шiсть” (sьiсьть). A situation, when in a language, the sound о is replaced by а, is widespread. For example, in paronymous words (words with a same radical (basis)). This may be related with an emphasis shift to another vowel sound. The same rule exists for the pair е, i. For example, in the articulation of the Russian words ногá – нóги (нага – ногьi), земля – зéмли (зьiмльа – зьемльi). Mostly, this structure of vowel sounds has an indecisive base though. Let us consider the following four blocks of letters (see subsection 3.1): БВ D ð З Z Г Y , , , . (1) ПФ T Θ С S КХ They are constructed using one sufficiently simple rule. 8 letters in the upper rows of blocks (1) denote voiced consonants, and letters in the lower rows denote unvoiced (surd, breathed) consonants. In order to make an unvoiced sound from a voiced one you have to whisper a word with the voiced sound. Then this voiced sound turns to corresponding unvoiced one which is located below in blocks (1). For example, whisper the word “bottle” and the first sound б will turn to a sound that is similar to the sound п. In order to make a voiced sound from an unvoiced one you have to combine two words as follows. The first word must have this unvoiced sound at the end and the second word must have voiced first sound (excepting the sound в). If you say these two words quickly, as if they were one word, then the unvoiced sound turns to the corresponding voiced sound. For example, say the phrase “thick bush” in one word. Then the sound к turns to the sound г. Letters in the left columns in blocks (1) are called central consonant letters and letters in the right columns in blocks (1) are called provincial consonant letters. The same names we introduce for sounds. The names are stipulated by the following empirical rule: if a language has a provincial sound then it has the corresponding central sound too. The converse proposition is incorrect in almost every case, i.e., a language may have a certain central sound while the corresponding provincial sound is absent. Moreover, in the process of the natural evolution of a spoken language, a central sound may be

6 replaced by its provincial associate and vice versa. Let us show examples. German and English analogues: dieser – this, Ambos – anvil, Schmied – smith. Russian and Ukrainian articulation of the letter г: in Russian — г, in Ukrainian — g. In the modern Greek language the letters β, δ, γ denote the provincial sounds в, ð, g; the corresponding central sounds are denoted by their unvoiced analogues in aggregate with the letter µ, ν, γ respectively. These letters play the role of prefix operators of the vocalization. All sounds that are denoted by provincial consonant letters are fricative (hushing) sounds. Also the sounds з and с are hushing. Because of this, a suspicion may arise: in reality, probably, all provincial sounds are fricative, 4 central sounds are missed in the described structure, and these central sounds corresponds to the fricative sounds з, z, с, s. But we have the table of consonant sounds of IPA in our disposal. Using it, we can conclude that such omission is doubtful. Thus, the traditional division of consonant sounds into fricative ones and plosive ones don’t lead to an ordered structure. This is a fundamental point! It explains why research of classification in phonetics didn’t bring a satisfactory result. We note that if you search the 6th column in the table of section 2, then you see that the Latin letter h is some kind of a postfix operator which makes provincial consonants from corresponding central consonants. Excepting the letters в and ф. Although the pair of the Latin letters ph is used to denote the sound ф in words of the Greek provenance, for example, in the words “physics”, “sphere”, “phone”. We now describe the rule used to choose the order of blocks (1). A domain of the air vibration generation is formed while producing a consonant sound in a mouth cavity. This vibration is called “sound”. The generation domain of sounds of the first block is located in a leaps region, of the second block is produced with participation of a tongue and teeth, of the third one is produced with participation of a tongue at the middle part of a hard palate, of the fourth one is located in the remote part of a mouth cavity near a throat (larynx). Thus the order of blocks is stipulated by depth of a sound generation domain: the farther the generation domain is located from outer space, the righter the block is placed. The same rule holds for columns in the blocks: a generation domain for left column sounds is located closer to a mouth exit, a generation domain for right column sounds is located closer to a throat. But this rule holds if some sounds are articulated in a special way. Particularly, it doesn’t hold for the English articulation version of the sounds d, ð, t, q. This rule gives one additional independent ability to determine what pair in a block is central and what pair is provincial. We note that the order of blocks (1) and the arrangement of their columns participate in the alphabetical order creation. The resonant letters have the following order in the alphabet: м, н, р, л. This order is chosen using the principle of sound generation domain depth too. (This proposition is true if the sound л is articulated as in the German language or in Greek: a tongue tip touches the middle part of a hard palate but not teeth.) The division of resonant letters into rows is made using the same “evolution” principle as the division of all dual sounds into central & provincial ones. МН

РЛ Let us show examples. German and English analogues: “Ambos” – “anvil”. In the Japanese language the sound л is absent and the sound р is present. Let us consider the last block in the alphabet scheme. WJ

V Ь Letters are united in this block using the residual principle. However, some rules are used to arrange the letters inside the block. The letter w is placed in the left column and the letter j in the right one using the sound generation depth rule. The letter ь is placed in one column with the letter j, since in some languages (particularly in Slavic) sometimes they are denoted using the same letter and are often confused with each other. Let us show examples. The Russian language: яркий (jаркьij) – мягкий

7 (мьахкьij), ёж (jоs) – невтерпёж (ньефtьерпьоs). The Slovenian language: jazyk (jазик) – Ljubljana (льубльана).

7 Modification of sounds It turns out that a majority of sounds (equivalence classes), denoted by Mikrusian letters, has two articulation versions in some languages. It is reasonable to put these versions into different equivalence classes. This division is present in some natural languages and their written form. The Mikrusian letter ь helps to denote modified versions of vowel sounds and soft versions of consonant sounds.

7.1 Original and modified vowels The combination of a vowel letter and the letter ь denotes a modified vowel sound. Fore example, the letter о denotes the first sound in the English word “open” and the combination оь denotes the first sound in the German word “östlich”. Now, only those combinations are defined that are present in the table below. The definition of the rest combinations can be discussed and determined in the future. A vowel sound is called original if it is denoted by a vowel letter without the letter ь just by after it. The articulation of original sounds is given in the table of section 2. The Mikrusian letter ь is some kind of a postfix operator which makes modified vowels from original vowels.

Letter The original sound is The modified sound is The Latin letters Comment articulated like the chosen articulated like the chosen combination analogue letters in the word letters in the word for the modified sound А butter man ax О shore östlich (German) ox У book üben (German) ux

7.2 Hard and soft consonants The combination of any consonant letter with ь denotes a soft consonant sound. If there is not the letter ь just after the consonant letter, then this letter denotes a hard consonant sound. The articulation of hard sounds is given in the table of section 2. For example, the letter п denotes the first sound in the English word “pond” and the combination пь denotes the first sound in the English word “pea”. In the following table there are some other examples.

8 Letter The hard sound is The soft sound is The Latin letters Comment articulated like the chosen articulated like the chosen combination analogue letters in the word letters in the word for the soft sound М command familiar mx Н dinner new nx Р три (Russian) rx Л building литр (Russian) lx Б table beyond bx В novel vehicle vx П space pea px Ф comfort feature fx D cold due dx ð this dhx T capital тень (Russian) tx Θ moth thx З design зима (Russian) zx Z vision zhx С mistake сера (Russian) sx S short sure shx Russian щ. Г ground gear gx Y гимн (Ukrainian) ghx К fake execute kx Х behaviour hear khx W row wx J toy genoj (Greek) yx

8 Double sounds In the Mikrusian alphabet there are no letters that denote double sounds, but there exists a need to denote them somehow.

8.1 Diphthongs (double vowel sounds) Denotations for diphthongs (solidly pronounced vowel sounds) by Mikrusian letters are not defined now. This is a topic for further discussions and definitions. The letter v may be used for such purposes. More probably, diphthongs should be denoted by a few vowel letters written in succession and distinct vowel sounds should be denoted by corresponding vowel letters separated by the Mikrusian letter v. For example, the English word “preamble” may be written as прivаьмбл, and the English word “year” may be written as jie. Also it is possible to introduce orthography rules to distinguish the English words “poor”, “pour”, “pore”, and “paw”. Although they are phonetically indistinguishable.

9 8.2 Affricates (double consonant sounds) In some languages there exist several special sounds. They are similar to a solid pronunciation of two dual consonant sounds. Such sounds are called double sounds (or affricates). Examples: the last sound in the English word “bits” is similar to the sequence of the sounds t and с, the first sound in the English word “cheese” is similar to the sequence of the sounds tь and sь. Let us consider the following pairs of consonant letters: dз, dz, tс, ts. Let us consider double sounds from these pairs. There are exactly 8 of them: by one hard and one soft sound for every pair. DЗ DZ DЗЬ DZЬ , . ТС ТS ТСЬ ТSЬ We construct these two blocks using the same concept that we use to construct such patterns like (1). Let us list the correspondence of these double sounds in languages:

Affricate Articulate like the chosen The Latin letters combination Comment letters in the word analogue for the affricate exactly the last sound in the birds j DЗ word “birds” but not the letter hard version of the first sound джин (Russian) jh DZ in the word “jaw” exactly the last sound in the bits c TС word “bits” but not the letter hard version of the first sound коттедж (Russian) ch TS in the word “cheese” DЗЬ jx DZЬ jaw jhx TСЬ вулиця (Ukrainian) cx TSЬ cheese chx

One version of a transliteration rule for affricates is proposed in the third column of this table. The transliteration principle is as follows. The denotations for the sounds dз and tс are proposed by the Latin letters j and c. And other affricates are denoted in concordance with the rules for the postfix operators denoted by the Latin letters h and x (see the tables from sections 2 and 7). Note that the sequence of the sounds t and sь is not the same as the first sound in the English word “cheese”. But in the Mikrusian alphabet this sound is denoted by the sequence of letters tsь. For example, the English word “choice” is written as tsьоjс. If you want to denote two separated sounds t and sь, then you have to write tvsь. In order to denote separate sounds, the Mikrusian letter v has to be placed between letters that denote separated sounds. See section 10 for examples.

9 Prolonged and distinct sounds

9.1 Prolonged vowels Denotations for prolonged vowels by Mikrusian letters are not defined now. This is a topic for further discussions and definitions. The letter v may be used for such purposes. More probably, prolonged vowel sounds should be denoted by a few identical vowel letters written in succession and distinct identical vowel sounds should be denoted by two identical vowel letters separated by the letter v. For example, the English word “shot” might be written as sьоt, the English word “short” might be written as sьoot, and the English word “cooperation” might be written as коvопереjsьн.

10 9.2 Prolonged consonant sounds There are many cases when one (or more) consonant sound in a word is prolonged. For this case in many languages, two identical letters are written, one exactly after another. For example, in the surname of the great Swiss family of scientists “Bernoulli”. The same deal is with the Mikrusian alphabet. For example, if you need to denote the prolonged sound н, then type the sequence нн. If you need to denote the prolonged soft sound нь, then type ннь, i.e., you have to use the sequence of letters with only one letter ь. This rule holds for all prolonged consonant sounds accepting double sounds. Examples: the English word “unknown” is written as анноwн, the English word “unneutral” is written as анньjуtрал. In order to denote a prolonged double sound one has to duplicate the first of two consonant letters that are included in sound’s denotation. For example, well-known surname Belucci with prolonged pronunciation of the sound tsь should be written as Белуttsьi. But if we need to denote a combination of a hard sound and its soft version, then the letter v has to be written between identical letters. For example, if we need to denote the sequence of the sounds н and нь, then we have to write нvнь. We note that a pair of different soft consonant sounds is denoted with two letters ь. Example: the sequence of the sounds tsь and tь is denoted by tsьtь. The Russian word “чтить” is written as tsьtьitь, the Russian word “шесть” is written as sесьtь, and the Russian word “мнимый” is written as мньiмиj.

10 Separation of word parts The letter v is used to separate letter combinations that denote one sound. Let us consider the case you want to denote the sound t and the sound sь one after another. If you write the sequence tsь then you denote the corresponding double sound (the first sound in the word “cheese”). For the declared purpose you have to write tvsь. Let us show examples of using the letter v. The English word “postscript” is written as поwсtvскрiпt, the word “bits” is written as бitс (without v). Now, the rules of using the letter v are defined for separation of letters that denote prolonged and double consonant sounds. We suppose that there will be defined the rules of using the letter v to separate letters that denote prolonged and double vowel sounds.

11 Mikrusian keyboard The Mikrusian alphabet contains 30 letters and, therefore, it may be arranged on a standard PC- keyboard. In order to arrange the letters on a keyboard, the following rule was applied: letters’ layout must facilitate a blind typing technique. It is easy to notice that voiced and unvoiced dual letters are written together seldom, therefore, they may be spatially separated on keyboard. On the other hand, vowel, resonant, and transitional letters are neighbors with all letters often. This consideration helps us to generate the rule: all voiced dual letters should be placed on the lower keyboard row and all unvoiced dual letters should be placed on the row that is third from below. We could do it inversely but the choice was done according to the facts that in Slavic languages unvoiced sounds are met frequenter than voiced ones and in blind typing it is easier to hit the keys of the third row from below than the first row. Further specific arrangement of the letters is stipulated by such principles: • letter occurrence frequency in texts; • difficulty of hitting a particular key in a blind typing process; • letter occurrence frequency near the letters а and ь (these letters are met frequenter than others in Russian words written by Mikrusian letters); • comfort of typing double consonant sounds; • arrangement of correspondent voiced and unvoiced dual letters in such a way that their consecutive typing would be most difficult, since this case occurs quite rarely. • smoother work distribution among typing fingers. These rules are managed to fulfill for the majority of keys. Not for all though.

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Contents

1 Introduction...... 1 1.1 Classification subproblems ...... 1 1.2 Why do we need it?...... 2 1.3 What do we already have? ...... 2 1.4 What do we have below? ...... 3 2 The table of the Mikrusian alphabet of 30 letters ...... 4 3 Scheme of the Mikrusian alphabet...... 5 3.1 Capital (uppercase) letters...... 5 3.2 Small (lowercase) letters...... 5 4 Types of Mikrusian alphabet letters in the alphabetical order...... 5 5 Sounds and letters ...... 5 5.1 Vowels ...... 5 5.2 Consonants...... 6 5.3 Auxiliary letters...... 6 6 Concept of the construction of the blocks...... 6 7 Modification of sounds ...... 8 7.1 Original and modified vowels...... 8 7.2 Hard and soft consonants...... 8 8 Double sounds...... 9 8.1 Diphthongs (double vowel sounds) ...... 9 8.2 Affricates (double consonant sounds)...... 10 9 Prolonged and distinct sounds ...... 10 9.1 Prolonged vowels...... 10 9.2 Prolonged consonant sounds...... 11 10 Separation of word parts ...... 11 11 Mikrusian keyboard...... 11

Comment. This report is refreshed on http://mikrusian.narod.ru/alphabet.pdf . The following fonts are used for this report English111 Adagio BT English111 Presto BT English111 Vivace BT Greek garamond Sgreek and also standard fonts Euclid Euclid Extra Euclid Fraktur Euclid Math One Garamond Monotype Corsiva SWScrpc SWScrps Symbol Tahoma Times New Roman They can be downloaded from http://mikrusian.narod.ru/fonts.rar

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