Goals

1. An orthography which gets closer to the “heart” of the English language, based upon traditional English conventions. Presently, words in English capture the spirit of the language from which they descend, and not the spirit of the English language itself. While this is a useful trait for an international auxiliary language, for native speakers, it results in an orthography which has no real character of its own. Politically, the “cultureless” nature of native English allows its speakers to uphold the language’s transparent whiteness, and reifies English culture as The Culture Of The World. It is the hope of this project that the language will perhaps learn some humility by learning to own its traits, instead of constantly appropriating from others.

2. Visual distinctiveness from traditional English text. Kibben contains a number of letters and diacritics not found in contemporary English, making the choice of orthographic system clear. No reader will mistake a Kibben sentence to simply be a misspelled English one.

3. Revival of English innovations which existed prior to its Latinization. Native letters like Þ were removed from English on account of not being Latin characters, and printing presses having difficulty typesetting them. There is no reason in contemporary times to continue avoiding these letters, or to hold the language’s orthography to a Continental European standard.

Semi‐goals

1. Clarity to native speakers. Where possible, Kibben preserves letters with the same meaning that they have in contemporary English, as well as common spelling conventions such as the silent E. Consequently, the spelling of some words changes not at all. That said—if the native orthography of English were already sufficient, there would be no need for this respelling.

2. A clearly‐defined Runic representation. Personally, this author has no especial love for Runic orthographies, but in developing this script it became unmistakable that the Old English futhorc is perhaps still a closer match for contemporary English than the Latin alphabet which we now use. Consequently, the option is provided to write Kibben using runes in place of Latin letters, with a spelling that reflects the contemporary language, rather than that of the early English cultures.

Non‐Goals

1. An unambiguous phonemic or phonetic rendering of the language. Kibben is not a substitute for the International Phonetic Alphabet or other phonetic spelling systems which attempt to perfectly capture the spoken language. It is a literary orthography aimed at running text and based upon the English literary tradition. Certain important phonemic qualities of English, such as syllable stress, remain unmarked in Kibben.

2. Clarity to non‐native speakers. Kibben is an English orthography aimed at some subset of native English speakers. It inherits traditional English usages for its consonants and vowels, which sometimes differ considerably from that of other languages which use the Latin script.

3. Ease of input. Input systems should be designed around orthographies, not the other way around. Consequently, input system support and the presence of precomposed Unicode characters were not factors under consideration when developing the script.

Character Encoding

A hypothetical character set containing all the characters required to compose a Kibben document might be as follows:

However, unless you are in an environment with strict 8‑bit encoding requirements, you should just use Unicode.

Keyboard Layout

The following is a keyboard layout which contains all of the above characters. Note that Caps Lock switches the layout into Runic, and Caps Lock + Option gives a standard US English configuration.

Alternates

The following separately‐encoded characters in Unicode are considered graphical alternates of the given character in Kibben:

Where possible, you should encode texts using the base character and select an alternate shape using font features.

Rhoticity

Kibben is based on non‐rhotic English with some R‐insertion—meaning that an R will never appear in the coda of a syllable. Instead, short vowels change their pronunciation when followed by an R; for more information, see the section on vowels below.

Merges and nonmerges

Different dialects merge the vowels in bath, palm, lot, cloth, and thought differently. Kibben merges bath and palm to short A + R (/ɑː/), merges lot and cloth to short O (/ɒ/), and conveys thought with short O + R (/ɔː/).

Devoiced W

The WH sound in words like where is distinguished from the W sound in words like werewolf; the former is written HW.

Yod dropping and coalescence

Yod‐coalescence transforms historic /juː/ into /uː/ while affecting the previous consonant. This typically only affects unstressed syllables, but can cross syllable boundaries. Kibben observes yod‐coalescence with the following consonants: Z (becomes ZC), S (becomes SC), D (becomes GC), T (becomes KC), and Ƒ (becomes ƑC). Kibben also observes yod‐coalescence with H (becomes HC) regardless of syllable stress. When the sequence KT undergoes yod‐coalescence, it is written XC.

In contrast, yod‐dropping transforms historic /juː/ into /uː/ without affecting the previous consonant. This affects all syllables, but cannot cross syllable boundaries. Kibben observes yod‐dropping with the following consonants: stressed Z, stressed S, L, R, and all lenitions except for V and F.

Notes

The letters Q and X are forbidden in syllable onsets. Similarly, the letter H is forbidden in syllable codas except as HC. Many lenitions are rare, occurring only in a few words.

As an abbreviation, C may be reduced to a cedilla, so that HC, GC, KC, QC, XC, ZC, SC, ƑC are instead written Ḩ, Ģ, Ķ, Q̧, X̧, Z̧, Ş, Ƒ̧. The choice of cedilla or C should be consistent within a text; the two are not distinctive.

Ƒ is used in place of ST whenever the two comprise a single unit, as in past → paƒ; ST is used instead when the two belong to different morphemes, as in passed → past. Similar principles apply to Q and X.

Note that the letter Q has a very different pronunciation from traditional English.

The letters F, Þ, V, and Ð correspond to PC, TC, BC, and DC; the former are preferred due to their broader familiarity and history of usage within the English language.

Notes

The dot is a significant diacritic in Kibben. The letter I should be written dotless when a dot diacritic is not intentional.

Because Å is always long, it cannot take a dot diacritic. However, it can take a diæresis.

Because U is not used in Kibben words, the digraph AU may be used in place of Å. In this case, any diacritics should be placed over the A.

Notes

The letter R can never appear in codas. When functioning as a vowel, it is pronounced /ə/.

Diæresis

A diæresis functions like a hyphenation point, indicating the beginning of a new syllable and preventing the preceding character from making up its onset. It may appear over any vowel and replaces most intervocalic consonant doubling from traditional English. Proper usage of diæreses to close preceding syllables is generally the preferred means of shortening vowels.

A diæresis is often required when appending an affix which begins with a vowel to a word which ends in closed syllable, to prevent the syllable from opening. It is also required when appending an affix which begins with a vowel to a word which ends in a vocalic sonorant, to prevent the sonorant from being reinterpreted as consonantal. So hit → hyt becomes hitting → hytÿŋ and gender → gcındr becomes gendering → gcındrÿŋ. But fight → fyȷt need only become fighting → fyȷtyŋ, because the length of its vowel is assured.

The Runic equivalent for a diæresis is a two‐dot punctuation mark ‹ ᛬ › preceding the given character.

Dotted vowels

A dot diacritic placed over a vowel closes the syllable and forces it to have a short pronunciation. They replace syllable‐final H in traditional English. Dots often occur before syllables with no onset or at the end of morphological units, such as prefixes, where using a consonant to close the syllable is not an option. They can serve a disambiguatory function: mat → mat but matt(e) → mȧt.

In multisyllabic words, dots are typically not required on unstressed syllables which are reduced to schwa, although they may be preserved for etymological or disambiguatory reasons.

It is possible for a vowel to have both a dot and a diæresis, in which case the dot is placed furthest from the baseline: ‹ ÿ̇ ›.

The Runic equivalent for a dotted vowel is a single‐dot punctuation mark ‹ ᛫ › following the given character.

J and Ŋ

The letter J yew → ywȷ has no standalone pronunciation, and instead lengthens the preceding vowel. It takes the place of a lengthening Y or GH in traditional English orthography. J is required in words which consist of only an irreducible long vowel; namely: oi → øȷ, ow → åȷ, ooh → wȷ, I → yȷ, oh → oȷ, and eh → aȷ.

Although a dot diacritic is not valid over J (it is a vowel modifier, not a vowel), it is always written dotless to avoid confusion.

The letter Ŋ Inguine → Yŋgwyne can only appear in syllable codas, and has a pronunciation of /ŋ/. Orthographically, the preceding vowel is always short (unless lengthened by J). However, some dialects may give it a longer pronunciation.

Silent E

The letter E steed → ƒıde has no standalone pronunciation, but makes the preceding final consonant act orthographically like an initial, thus lengthening the previous vowel. This should be preferred over J for vowel‐lengthening where possible. In some cases, E and J serve a disambiguatory function: site → syte but sight → syȷt.

When the preceding syllable of a word contains a vocalic sonorant with no coda, E skips over it and instead affects the previous syllable. So the spelling of able → able does not change in Kibben; compare babble → babl. Such an E cannot be dropped when appending an affix, since it is effectively transposed from earlier in the word: ableist → ableyƒ.

Otherwise, E is dropped when appending an affix which makes it redundant (one which begins with a vowel).

’d, ‑t, and ‑ed

The affixes which might variously be written as ’d, ‑t, or ‑ed in traditional English are written in Kibben as ‑t when nonsyllabic and devoiced, ‑d when nonsyllabic and voiced, and ‑yd when syllabic and voiced. So missed → myst, whined → hwyned, and fated → fatyd. When a word ends in an open syllable, an E may be added to preserve its length: skied → skıde.

’s, ‑s, and ‑es

The affixes which might variously be written as ’s, ‑s, or ‑es in traditional English are written in Kibben as ‑s when nonsyllabic and devoiced, ‑z when nonsyllabic and voiced, and ‑yz when syllabic and voiced. So Frank’s → Fraȷnks, Bill’s → Bylz, cats → kats, dogs → dogz, Liz’s → Lyzÿz, and bashes → bascÿz. When a word ends in an open syllable, an E may be added to preserve its length: Sky’s → Skyze.

‑ily

When the suffix ‑lı is applied after an unstressed long I, the I is dropped and ‑ylı̈ is added instead. This is the Kibben equivalient of changing a ‑y to an ‑ily. So happy → hapı̈ becomes happily → hapÿlı̈ and noisy → nøzı becomes noisily → nøzylı̈.

‑ion

The suffix ‑ion is simply written ‑n(e), and the preceding consonant is given lenition through yod‐coalescence. So connection → konıxcn, question → kwıƒcn, and formulation → formywlascne.

Capitalization

The first letter of sentences of paragraph content should not be capitalized, but rather indicated through increased spacing and, optionally, an underline set below and to the left of the first letter. In plaintext environments, it is recommended that the increased spacing be encoded as ⟨U+202F   NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE, U+00A0 SPACE⟩.

Family names of individuals should be set in all capitals whenever they appear, to distinguish them from other names, for which only the first letter should be capitalized. Allcaps may also be used for other sorts of embedded names, for example ‹ COMPANY, Inc. › or ‹ Project CODENAME ›. However, outside of an embeddeded context, these names should typically be given ordinary capitalization.

Titles of longer works should be either italicized or given a wavy underline, and titles of shorter works set in double quotation marks, according to usual English tradition. The capitalization of these works should be left to the author’s discretion.

Names of countries and languages should be capitalized when used nominally I travel to England → yȷ travl tw Yŋgland; I speak English → yȷ spıke Yŋglysc, but not adjectivally the English language → ðı yŋglysc laŋgwygc or when referring to certain groups of people they are English → ðaȷ ar yŋglysc. When written out as words, months, days of the week, and days of the month should be capitalized, as in ‹ Monday, the Twentyfirst of December, Two Thousand Twenty ›. Other common nouns are capitalized when personified or referring abstractly to a broad class of things.

Abbreviations and initialisms should be set in small capitals and otherwise have the same capitalization properties as any other word. No periods are required within or after abbreviated words.

In Runic text, which has no lettercase, proper nouns may instead be indicated with a cross punctuation mark ‹ ᛭ › preceding the word. When capitalization extends across multiple words, as in a full name or title of a work, another cross punctuation mark should be placed at the end.

Hyphenation

Compound words should simply be combined without hyphenation when they represent a single concept and the result is legible. A middle dot may be added to increase legibility. Multiword phrases, when used as modifiers, should be joined with hyphens, or the entire phrase may be quoted with double quotes.

A tilde dash (i.e., ⟨U+007E ~ TILDE⟩) is used to join words when neither modifies the other; for example, the Anglo‐French (with a hyphen) are Frenchmen who are of English heritage, but the Anglo~French War (with a tilde) was a war between the English and French.

The middle dot is used as a decimal separator in numbers, and the colon as the separator between hours, minutes, and seconds in times. Dates should be written in YYYY.MM.DD format. For numbers with more than four contiguous decimal places, a narrow nonbreaking space may be used as the thousands separator: ◊12 345·78.

Dashes

Omissions should be rendered using a two‐em dash. Emdashes and endashes have the same uses as in English; an emdash is preferred over a spaced endash for parentheticals. A swung dash (in place of an emdash) may be used to indicate termination in a lilting tone of voice, like so⁓

Emphasis

Emphasized text in Kibben should be wrapped in dotted crosses, like ⁜⁠this⁠⁜. Letterspacing may optionally be increased within emphasized text.

Bracketing and Quotations

Kibben features a broader set of characters for denoting quotations than traditional English. Exact quotes of written texts should use guillemets, padded internally with thin nonbreaking spaces, like « this ». Scare quotes, paraphrases, and the like should use conventional English double quotation marks, like “this”. When referencing a word directly, and not its referent, the word should be set in single quotes like ‘this’. When referring to an exact character or string of characters (i.e., a string literal), single guillemets, padded internally with thin nonbreaking spaces, should be used, like ‹ this ›.

Character thoughts, asides, or changes in voice should use chevrons, like ⟨this⟩. Authorial or editorial notes should be set in brackets, like [this]. When multiple words or phrases may fill a position in a sentence, they may be listed within braces, like {this, these}. Struck text should use vertical bars with inward‐pointing quills, like ⸠this⸡, and inserted text should be marked with grave and acute accents, like `this´ And, of course, parentheticals should be placed within parentheses, like (this). There is no change to these symbols when nesting.

Latin‐script text which is not Kibben English should be underlined or otherwise made typographically distinct. Transliterations (i.e., without translation) should use upper halfbrackets, like ⸢this⸣.

Spoken dialogue should begin with a horizontal bar followed by a thin nonbreaking space, and be terminated with a nonbreaking emspace, like: ― this. ⁠Nested dialogue should use double quotation marks. Dialogue which spans multiple paragraphs should place a new horizontal bar at the beginning of each.

A list may be introduced with a dog’s bollocks (that is, a colon followed by an emdash and a space):— first, second. When the description follows the list, this punctuation is reversed. First, second —:this is an example. And, of course, a list placed in the middle of a sentence:— first, second —:may be bracketed on both sides.

Preamble to Universal Declaration of Human Rights