This page brings together basic information about the Sora Sompeng script and its use for the Sora language. It aims to provide a brief, descriptive summary of the modern, printed orthography and typographic features, and to advise how to write Sora Sompeng using Unicode.
Sora Sompeng is used to write the Sora language as an alternative to the Telugu or Oriya scripts. The Sora language is endangered, and may be spoken by 2-400,000 people, although the percentage of those who are literate, and know the Sora Sompeng orthography may be quite low.wl Sora Sompeng is used in a variety of written materials, and especially in religious contexts.ume
Sora Sompeng was invented in 1936 by Mangei Gomango to provide the Sora language with its own script, and to support a new religious movement called Mattar Banom Damri. The letters are named after 24 gods in the Sora Pantheon.z
Unicode 17 has 1 dedicated Sora Sompeng block, comprising 35 characters.
The Sora Sompeng script is an abugida, ie. each consonant contains an inherent vowel sound. See the table to the right for a brief overview of features for the Sora Sompeng orthography.
Observation: Some people describe the script as an alphabet, but i don't find the arguments for that persuasive, based on the evidence to hand.
Sora text runs left-to-right in horizontal lines. There is no case distinction. Words are separated by spaces.
Sora sompeng represents native consonant sounds using 18 letters.
A special letter, π¨, can be used to represent sounds from neighbouring languages that are not assimilated into the Sora phonology.
Sora Sompeng has no means of indicating a consonant that is not followed by a vowel.u This leads to ambiguity when clusters of consonant letters occur, and the reader simply has to know when to omit the inherent vowel and when not to.
Consonant clusters can be found in the pronunciation of Sora words, but they are simply written using sequences of separate consonant lettersz,206; there are no conjunct forms or any other way of indicating the lack of intervening inherent vowels. This, of course, means that the reader has to decide whether an inherent vowel should be pronounced between adjacent consonants or not. It is not clear from the written text.
Sora sompeng consonants have an inherent vowel pronounced Ι. Nine more post-consonant vowel sounds are written using 6 non-combining letters. There are no combining marks, and there are no pre-base vowels or circumgraphs. There appears to be no way to indicate vowel nasalisation.
Standalone vowels are written using the same vowel letters as post-consonant vowels.
Sora Sompeng has a set of native digits, designed for base-10 (rather than the base-12 used in the language). It uses ASCII punctuation marks.
Notable features
information about the script is sparse
although it is an abugida, there are no combining marks β vowel signs are self-standing letters
phonemic coverage appears to not be complete for vowels
Sora Sompeng consonants carry an inherent vowel Ι, so kΙ is written by simply using the consonant letter.
eg.
π’ππ
π’,π,π
Post-consonant vowels
Sora Sompeng has no combining marks. All vowels that follow consonants are written using one of 6 independent letters.
There are no pre-base vowels or circumgraphs.
Vowel letters
The following letters are used to write vowels.
π€,π₯,π£,π¦,π§,π’
eg.
ππ₯π‘π’π
Three letters, π€, π₯ and π¦, each represent more than one sound, though it's not made clear in the sources consulted whether these are phonemically distinct.
e is distinguished from Ι in writing, but there is no similar distinction between o and Ι.
Nasalisation
Nasalisation exists in the Sora language, but doesn't appear to be marked in the Sora Sompeng orthography.z,206
Standalone vowels
Standalone vowels are apparently written using the normal vowel letters, with no special additional mechanisms.
eg.
π’ππ
Vowel sounds to characters
This section maps Sora vowel sounds to common graphemes in the Sora Sompeng orthography.
i
vowelπ€
Ι¨
vowelπ€
Κ
vowelπ₯
u
vowelπ₯
e
vowelπ£
o
vowelπ¦
Ι
inherent voweleg. πππ
Ι
vowelπ§
Ι
vowelπ¦
aΛ
vowelπ’
Vowel absence
Vowel absence principally occurs either when a consonant is a syllable coda, or when a consonant is part of a consonant cluster.
Consonants
Consonant summary table
This table summarises only basic consonant to character assignments. Click on the phonetic transcriptions for more detail.
The glottal stop is written using π, but appears only between like vowelsme,2. This leads to a shortcut in transcriptions: for example, the vowel whose name is aΚa is typically transcribed ah.me,2 Sora free-standing nouns must have two syllables, and this is often achieved by breaking the vowel of a word into two with a glottal stop.me,2
Observation: In Daniels, it is implied that the names of consonants end with aΚ, rather than aΚa.
Repertoire extension
Zide writesz,205 that sounds of Oriya or Telugu loan words tend to be adapted to fit the Sora phonology. However, he indicates that some non-native sounds can be described using π¨ or π. The former is used to fill gaps such as retroflexes, while the latter is used to indicate aspiration. See the examples below.
π¨π,π¨π,π¨π,π¨π,ππ
Consonant sounds to characters
This section maps Sora consonant sounds to common graphemes in the Sora Sompeng orthography.
p
consonantπ
b
consonantπ
t
consonantπ
tΝ‘Κ
consonantπ
dΝ‘Κ
consonantπ
Ι
consonantπ
k
consonantπ
Ι‘
consonantπ
Κ
consonantπ
s
consonantπ
m
consonantπ
n
consonantπ
Ι²
consonantπ‘
Ε
consonantπ
w
consonantπ
r
consonantπ
Ι½
consonantπ¨π
l
consonantπ
j
consonantπ
Numbers
Digits
Sora Sompeng has a set of native digits
π°,π±,π²,π³,π΄,π΅,πΆ,π·,πΈ,πΉ
Text direction
Sora Sompeng text runs left to right in horizontal lines.
Sora Sompeng commonly uses ASCII parentheses to insert parenthetical information into text.
start
end
standard
(
)
Quotations & citations
The following punctuation marks around quotations have been observed in Sora Sompeng texts. Of course, due to keyboard design, quotations may also be surrounded by ASCII double and single quote marks.pv,7
As in almost all writing systems, certain punctuation characters should not appear at the end or the start of a line. The Unicode line-break properties help applications decide whether a character should appear at the start or end of a line.
