I lost all my long-winded speeches, but I think the Chinese example you provided is most likely, or a variant that functions similarly to our numeral system, which is divided by thousand-digits and often abbreviated by the first letter of our word for that place value group. Like so, 2b, 35m, 350k, 42 ( together as 2b35m350k42) for two billion, thirty-five million, three hundred fifty thousand, and forty two. That would likely be the way for bookkeeping at very least, and whether or not they would use a tally-derived ( like Roman is ) number keeping system, I'm not sure, but I don't see reason why they
wouldn't. It's even possible, if not probable, that they use both. I'd like to note that I'm still for a Mayan-esque Base20 number system, which is derived from base5 tally, but simplified and developed to function as a place-value system and provide easy line-of-sight basic arithmetic. ( It would have to be modified to be horizontally-justified though, which wouldn't be hard but would negate some of its usability as a way of keeping numbers. Possibly pushing it into a strictly professional use, like modern-day stenography and accounting for the varying levels of accuracy you can set for your bookkeeper to keep. )
As for the alphabet, yes I have some ideas. Someone, I think it was you Dirst, suggested we use IPA to determine the vowel sound, I'm not sure we should actually. From what I can tell, Dwarven vowels encompass every vowel producible by a humanoid mouth and most of the consonants. I lost the paragraph I wrote explaining the general history of the extended Latin alphabet, but I
do still have the main idea of it and my guesses at what each vowel glyph corresponds to. Basically, what I want to do is make a group chart, similar to what we did with the consonants, sorting each vowel by its "type". From what I've determined, the primary vowels are: a,å,ä,e,ë,i, ï,o,ö,u,ü. The remaining modifiers, if not strictly tonal or gestural as suggested, or based on duration and stress, as is also possible, are intermediate vowels that fall in between these primary vowels. ( I don't know how to approximate those sounds. ) As can be easily seen, each primary vowel has its compliment primary vowel, e.g. o with ö, with two exceptions: a, which has a third variant that counts as a primary vowel and i, whose compliment I speculate may not be a vowel at all, or at least not purely a vowel. I speculate that ï is the Dwarven equivalent of the absent "j" sound, which is only present in the in-game human language. Whereas Humans treat it as a consonant, Dwarves treat it as a vowel and Toady theoretically notated them differently as a result, if we're still treating him as the transliterator of the languages from their native alphabet. This could lead to some fun with in-game transliteration if Dwarves borrow words from Humans, and to give some real life examples: Bjørn would become Bïörn, York would become Ïork, etc. I don't have strong justification for this, sadly, but it's my suggestion nonetheless.
What I think each glyph corresponds to:
a - "a" as in "pawn" or "o" as in "moss" ( same sound )
ä - "a" in cat
å - "ow" in cow, but shorter.
e - "eh" as in "Eh"
ë - "ey" as in fey
i - either "i" as in "sick" or "ee" as in "free"
Ï - I've already said above, though it could also be "ee" as above, especially if that's not represented by the above or one of the other modifiers.
o - "oh" as in "Oh" or "bow" ( the weapon )
ö - "uh" as in "Uhmm." or "bun"
u - "oo" as in "moon", though perhaps shorter
ü - "ew" as in "chew" or "ue" as in "blue" ( same sound )
If the other marks are stress/duration marks, then the opposite marks of, for example é and è, could refer to the main vowel or its compliment being stressed or lengthened. e.g. long "eh" or long "ey" ( The former like me on a Monday, the latter like the Fonz.
) As for the circumflex... I'm still very unsure. Maybe as powerful emphasis?? Personally, I like to think of it as a "rolling" tone, like an ornamentation in singing, but as someone else jokingly pointed out: Dwarves are not much for musicality.
( When I find the exact quote, I'll append it to the bottom of this message in edit form. )
Some phonetic renderings according to the above Urist Disuthedëm ( Dagger Nightmarekey ) - Oorist Disoothehdeym - Oo wrist de sooth eh day mm.-
I know that goes against how I've previously assumed and heard others say "Urist" is pronounced, and for that reason "Urist" will probably continue to be pronounced as Ürist/Ïürist as a sort of exception.
We'll probably be divided among ourselves about the vowels for years.
-snip
- The other extreme is that each represents a different tone/pitch, similar to Chinese. In this case we could assume that each mark represents a similar tone as, say, Pinyin: á (rising tone), à (falling tone), â (rising then falling tone), ū (flat tone), and ä/å (?). However, I can hardly imagine a dwarf making tones. I like to think they talk in a gruff monotone, or in some horribly off key (when singing).
-snip-