This is such a cool concept tbh, but unfortunately this namelist doesn't work anymore. Any chance for an update, or for someone to pick it up?

I'd love to see IPA in addition to the descriptions given for pronunciation.

This is exactly what I was looking for to use with my custom empire. Thank you for sharing!

Okay. Thank you for answering my question, and telling me a lot about Korean language history.

Personally, I would like to see the written part of Ro be used to romanize Korean. The current romanization is too Anglo-centric. Ro can also be used to transcribe Middle Chinese and Middle Korean. It can also be used to write any of the aforementioned languages, e.g. Tunguisic, Mongolian, Japanonic, Turkic, and even Finno-uralic languages. The romanization from Yale for East Asian language is flawed but in the Anglophone world, it is the most morphemically accurate, but flawed. The German system and the Turkish system is better for such languages. English uses a terrible orthography.

Korean phonology is similar to the Tunguisic, Mongolian, Japanonic, Turkic, and even Finno-uralic languages. One of the common feature in all these languages is the concept of vowel harmony.

Ro is not a natural language, but a constructed language. It would be interesting to see if any does arise over time if Koreans were to use Ro. I'm sure that phonology would change. Korean phonology has changed a bit as a result of using Korean Hangul script which only been used nationally since 1945, e.g. 'ai' >'e' from 'ä', 'oi' >'we' from 'ö', 'ui'>'wi' from 'ü' in the Seoul dialect, which Standard Korean is based on.

So... in other words, this is based of a form of a romanized modern Sino-Korean used for Classical Chinese. So, just from looking at the sounds, Ro is more closely related to the Korean family than it is to the Sino-Tibetan family, which means, at least for phonetics, using Korean as a source would be better historically than using a Japonic language. So, were there any phonological shifts from Sino-Korean to Ro?

So you can pick another Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc. person's name, e.g. Xi Jinping (current president of People's Republic of China) > 習近平 (simplified: 习近平) > '습근평' (Korean: Sup Kunphyeng) > ' Syb Gynpjeŋ ' (Ro).

Examples from the namelist: "Wang Hang Man" (English: wAHng hAHng mAHn) > one possible Chinese character combination : 王恒晩

Ro is based on the Sino-Korean reading of Classical Chinese.

All 467 syllables are the unique syllables for 33,179 Chinese characters from the Zihui (字彙: Cahü [Ro]). This means that any of the 33,179 Chinese characters has at least one of 467 possible syllables.

太陽 in Mandarin in Pinyin is ' Tàiyáng ', in Japanese it is ' Taiyô ' ('ng' in Japanese becomes a long vowel), in Korean it is ' Tay-yang '. In Ro, 太陽 > Täjaŋ (ä comes from diphthong 'ai'; ŋ>ng, note: 'ŋ' not supported in Stellaris). I found that Mandarin lost most of its final vowel sounds with the exception of 'ng' and 'n', e.g. 甲骨 ' jiǎ gǔ ' (Mandarin), ' kôkotu ' (Japanese), ' kapkol ' (Korean), 'gabgor' (Ro), etc.

Korean is the most closest in reading to Middle Chinese, the pronunciation of Calssical Chinese. Korean does have two phonological shifts. 1. Middle Chinese 'T' becomes 'L', e.g. 出發 (t͡ɕʰiuɪt̚ pʉɐt̚) > ' chulpal ' (Korean) and 2. 'ɨ' becomes 'a', e.g. 子 (Middle Chinese: t͡sɨX) > 'ca' (Korean).


Compare 出發 with other languages: 出發, chūfā (Mandarin), ' ceotfaat ' (Cantonese), ' chhutfat ' (Hakka), 'shut'patu ' (Japanese).

In Ro, 出發 is based on the Sino-Korean reading of 'chulpal' to become 'çurbar'.


By the way, Korean and Japanese are language isolates and is not related to any of the Chinese languages which is a part of the Sino-Tibetian language family.

It seems like Mandarin and Korean readings preserve vowel sounds, while Japanese and Cantonese seem to show historical vowel shifts. Korean, Japanese, and Cantonese preserve final consonant sounds while Mandarin drops 'k', 't', 'p' endings and 'm' > 'n'. In Japanese, because of their limited phonology, there are interesting compromises which results in more characters sounding alike, e.g. 敎 (kyo; gjo [Ro]) and 恭 (kong; goŋ [Ro]) are not homophones in Korean, Mandarin, and Cantonese but become homophones 'kyô' in Japanese. Mandarin shows strong platalization of velar and glottals, e.g. 甲 'jiǎ' < kap (Middle Chinese).

You said earlier that it is based off of and inspired by Classical Chinese, so i ask: How close is this system to Classical Chinese, or any other language for that matter? I ask this, mainly because I would like to know what is assumed among information, and figure out what basic parts of this language.

Oh! I think I understand what you are saying now. Well, thank you for answering my questions, and I will be sure that if I have any other questions, I will definitly ask.

@KeneticQuartz Thanks for the questions. I'd like to hear more so I know what sort of articles to write in the website.

@KeneticQuartz I had a website running on Ro, but domain name expired. I am in the process of setting up again.

@KeneticQuartz By the way, there is a pragmatic reason why many natural languages evolved to get rid of their glottal stops. It makes sense that in words like "isaxcim" > "isaccim".


'h' is another glottal. In Ro phonology, in words where 'h' is followed by a consonant, the 'h' becomes muted and the following consonant becomes aspirated. Ex: 'coh.da' (written) > 'co.ta' (pronounced)

'hg'>'k'

'hd'>'t'

'hc'>'ç'

'hb'>'p'

@KeneticQuartz Bascially, the 'x' in any Roic, non-Sinitic NOUNS, used between two combined words, has the function of doubling the following consonant. If a vowel follows 'x' then 'x' is pronounced with 'nn'.


In Roic VERBS, 'x' appears in the ' -x ' verb types like ' nax.r ' and ' cix.r '. Here, the ' x ' is mute. The historical glottal consonant is no longer pronounced and is more like a muted final consonant placeholder that indicates 'hey, there used to be a glottal stop here but is no longer pronounced, so please conjugate this verb as if there was a final consonant, but read it as if it ends in a vowel.'

@KeneticQuartz There are no glottal stops in Classical Chinese, so no, there are no ' x ' found in the mod because all the names are derived from Classical Chinese. The ' x ' which is a glottal stop does exist but is used to describe historical glottal stops and is morphemic, and not phonetic, founded only in Roic words, so yes, it is similar to the circumflex in French, but not exactly the same because in the word "ghäxip" (seasame leaf; perilla leaf) which is a combination of the word "ghä" (seasame) and "ip" (leaf), but "ghäxip" is not prnounced "ghäip" but as "ghännip". So here 'x'>'nn'. Also, 'x'>'doubles consonant sounds following the 'x' ' in words like "isaxcim" which is a combination of "isa" (to move (as in, to a new home)) and "cim" (stuff; baggag; load). "isaxcim" is pronounced "isaccim".

So, if I understand correctly, this version uses no glottal stops whatsoever. It also uses a character that WOULD signify it, but is only there in this case for historical purposes, kind of like French using the accent circumflex for where an s was. (Like in "château")

Also, Stellaris lacks special characters like ' ŋ ' (ng), and capitalized 'Ÿ' (Yi). So they are written as indicated in parentheses. Example: ' Gang ' should be ' Gaŋ ' and ' Yi ' should be ' Ÿ '. The Ro alphabet follows the 'one-phoneme-per-letter rule'. I hope the developers fix this.

KeneticQuartz:

In the Ro alphabet, glottal stop is ' x ' and it appears in the word for ' perilla leaf ' (English) as ' ghäxip ' (Ro), however, the ' x ' here is no longer pronounced as a glottal stop, but is there for historical morphemic reasons, and is pronounced more like ' ghännip '. Another place where the ' x ' appears in Ro is in the ' -x ' verb types like ' nax.r ' and ' cix.r '. Here, the ' x ' is mute. The historical glottal consonant is no longer pronounced and is more like a muted final consonant placeholder that indicates 'hey, there used to be a glottal stop here but is no longer pronounced, so please conjugate this verb as if there was a final consonant, but read it as if it ends in a vowel.'

Good question, KeneticQuartz.

The ' r ' is technically the ' ɾ ' in IPA (Alveolar flap).

There is a glottal stop in the Ro alphabet but none are used in the planetary naming system because the naming syatem is based off of Classical Chinese reading in Ro, and glottals aren't present in Classical Chinese transliterations into Ro.

Hey, about pronunciation, which type of R do you use? Also, where are the glottal stops?

IsraeliCrane, Do you know Mongolian?

Any chance we can get a similar mod but focused on the Mogolian Language

Someone's having fun with their linguistic education!!

Enjoy, everyone! Let me know what you think, as well as what you think should improve or change about this mod.