2. BASICS OF NAVLIPI
Remember that NAVLIPI uses the Latin alphabet as used for English, but with the letters used more phonetically, in their original phonetic sense in Latin or as in modern Spanish, rather than the most-unphonetic English! Also note that NAVLIPI does use and distinguish between upper-case (capital) letters and lower case (small) letters, unlike most of the Indian alphabets, which do not.
2.1 Long VOWELS
- Represented by reduplication: Thus, short i (as in English hit, Hindi इ) becomes long ii (as in English heat, Hindi ई). Similarly, short u (as in English good, Hindi उ), becomes long uu (as in English boot, Hindi ऊ), etc., etc. And similarly, short o, (as in Spanish no) becomes long oo (as in Spanish favor, Hindi ओ). [aa is an exception, see below.]
2.2 Some common VOWELS which are used a bit differently from how they are used in English or Spanish:
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- a as in English but, Hindi अ.
- aa as in English father, Hindi आ.
- q as in English about, 2nd vowel in Hindi यन्त्र. (This is an example of NAVLIPI re-purposing a letter redundant in the Latin alphabet; phoneticists call this the schwa.)
- e as in English bet; but long form ee as in English fair, vowel in Hindi है.
- ε (Greek Epsilon, one of the letters borrowed from Greek) as in English gray, Hindi ए, Spanish que.
- Ω (Greek Omega, another of the letters borrowed from Greek), as in English ball, vowel in Hindi कौन.
- ɔ (inverted-c) as in English Jack, vowel in Hindi मै. (This is a rare example of NAVLIPI transforming a Roman letter– here inverting it.)
- y as in French tu, German ȕber. (This is another example of NAVLIPI re-purposing a letter redundant in the Latin alphabet.)
- o// as in French feuille;
- o/ as in German schön.