Cáiuén (才文)

Cáiuén is the creation of Pangus Ho, who uses it to write his con-dialect of Chinese, (Cáiŋŷ/才语), but with modifications it's actually suitable to write any Sino-Tibetan language, including standard Chinese.

Notable features

Each syllable is written in a block consists of 3 parts:
1. (tóu/头) the initial consonant
2. (zoŋ/中) the tone and the initial vowel
3. (uêi/尾) the final vowel and consonants
Each part consist of exactly 20 characters (which makes them symmetric), so they can be built up to 8000 syllables.
The parts can be arranged in at least 3 styles:

Cáiuén

Cáiuén script

Notes

A stripe (-) means zero consonant or zero vowel. For example the syllable "ân" is written (-, -ˆ, an);
"ə" is not pronounced unless it appears after /i/ and /y/. "e", "eh" and "an" are pronounced /ɛ/, /ɛʔ/, and /ɛn/ respectively if they appear after /i/ and /y/, otherwise they are pronounced /ʌ/, /ʌʔ/, and /an/. "z", "q" and "x" are pronounced with /ɕ/ when they appears before /i/ and /y/, otherwise /ʂ/.
⁴⁴, ²⁴, etc are tone sandhi. ¹ is the lowest tone while ⁵ is the highest. ²⁴ means from mid-low tone rises to mid-high tone, etc.

Sample text

Sample text in Cáiuén

Sample text in Chinese characters

Sample text in Chinese characters
Xuêi Diào Go Tóu
[Sǒng] Su X̌h

Transliteration

Méŋ ŋyeh gî x̀ iôu, bâ ziôu uèn qiŋ tian.
Buh z tian shàŋ gioŋ gyeh, gim xìh x̀ hó nián.
ŋuô ỳh zéŋ foŋ guei ky̆, iòu kiôŋ kióŋ lóu ŋỳh ŷ, gau qǔ buh xěŋ hán.
Kî û nòŋ qiŋ îŋ, hó s̀ jài rén gián.
Zuân zu gǒh, di kî hù, zǎo ú mián.
Buh iŋ iôu hèn, hó x̀ qáŋ hiǎŋ biêh x́ yán.
Rén iôu bei huan lî héh, ŋyeh iôu im qíŋ yán kyeh, ĉ x̀ gû nán qyán.
Dàn ŋyàn rén qáŋ giôu, qian lî giòŋ zán gyan.

If you have any questions about Anglo-Arabic, you can contact Pangus at: xeno_vivre@yahoo.co.uk

Other scripts invented by Pangus Ho

Anglo-Arabic, Cáiuén, Lóngwén

Other writing systems invented by visitors to this site

Learn Chinese Characters with the Omniglot Chinese app

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