Limbu Alphabet - Structure

Structure

As an abugida, a basic letter represents both a consonant and an inherent, or default, vowel. In Limbu, the inherent vowel is /ɔ/.

To change the inherent vowel, a diacritic is added. Shown here on /k/ (ᤁ):

ᤁᤨ represents the same thing as ᤁ. Some writers avoid the diacritic, considering it redundant.

Initial consonant clusters are written with small marks following the main consonant:

Final consonants after short vowels are written with another set of marks, except for some final consonants occurring only in loanwords. They follow the marks for consonant clusters, if any.

Long vowels without a following final consonant are written with a diacritic called kemphreng:

There are two systems for writing long vowels with syllable-final consonants. One system is simply a combination of the kemphreng and final consonant marks:

The other is to write the final consonant with the basic letter, and a diacritic that marks both that the consonant is final, and that the preceding vowel is lengthened:

This same diacritic may be used to mark final consonants in loanwords that do not have final forms in Limbu, regardless of the length of the vowel.

Glottalization is marked by a sign called mukphreng.