Phonetic rendering of names

While concepts are conveyed with images (the glyphs) in the MG language, all proper names (for cities, nations, people) are represented by the combination of:

• rendering them phonetically, in the way they are pronounced, using the IPA: the International Phonetic Alphabet
• writing them in the original form (the original name in the original language and script)

Example:

The pronunciation represented in IPA always corresponds to the standard ("news speaker") pronunciation in the original local language (no dialect). For example "'dɔʏtʃlant" stands for "Deutschland", which is Germany in German.

Each such glyph is linked to translations in various languages, with the possibility of easy look up of the unknown ones until they get recognized.

In addition, audio files are provided for many names (and linked to the explanation pages). Example:

Stress is marked by an apostrophe before the stressed syllable: ' (e.g. 'roma).

Long vowels are marked with a triangular colon (ː).

Tonal information (e.g. for Chinese, Vietnamese..) is shown above the word. The system is intuitive, distinguishing five possible tone levels and all possible contour tones (variations between these levels) with one tone-marker for each syllable.

Further explanation on Phonetic Transliteration