Españabugida was invented by Punya Pranava Pasumarty as an alternative way of writing Spanish. It is an abugida or syllablic alphabet based on the Tibetan Uchen script, but is simplified and stylized to look more like European scripts.
It is designed to be simple by being more phonetically consistent and unicameral (no capital and small letter forms). Due to the the syllabic structure of the letters, Españabugida is more horizontally compact than the current Latin-based alphabet for Spanish.
Notable features
Type of script: abugida
Direction of writing: left to right in horizontal lines
Used to write: Spanish
Number of letters: 20 consonants, each of which has an inherent a sound. 5 vowels markers that
Españabugida
Notes
A dot can be placed under a letter in addition to any vowel mark. This places stress on the vowel of the respective syllable. It need be used only when the word strays from the typical Spanish pattern of vowel stress, like how [´] is used in Spanish.
While most letters have one unique sound, some letters have a few allophonic variants to accommodate contextual variation of the same sound in different words. Most notably, the letter for used for the [b] or [β] sound replaces both ‘b’ and ‘v’ of Spanish, since they practically sound alike in Spanish. Also, the letter for the [ɲ] sound is contextually adapted to the [ŋ] sound when followed by [g] or [k] consonant sounds. This is not unlike how in Spanish ‘n’ typically sounds like [n] but adapts to s sound like [ŋ] when followed by [g] or [k].
There are two letters for rhotic sounds, one for the [ɾ] sound and one for [r]. The former is used to replace Spanish ‘r’ in all contexts, and to that end, can contextually sound like [r], but the latter is used to replace Spanish ‘rr’, so it always has the rolled [r]. This distinction is important to note since it is identical to the difference between ‘r’ and ‘rr’ in the Latin-based Spanish alphabet. In a similar way, the letter for [tʃ] always replaces the Spanish ‘ch’, even when it sounds a bit different in various accents.
There are a few other letters in Españabugida which accommodate allophonic variants to simplify the script without compromising on the phonotactics of Spanish. Similarly to these, the vowel mark for the [u] sound can be pronounced like [w] in some contexts although it is still treated as a vowel.
Sample text
Transliteration
Todos los seres humanos nacen libres e iguales en dignidad y derechos y, dotados como están de razón y conciencia, deben comportarse fraternalmente los unos con los otros.
Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They
are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another
in a spirit of brotherhood. (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
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