Sheli Toj

Sheli Toj, which means “Sheli Writing System”, is the name of the script used
to write the Sheli language, created by David J. Peterson in 2001. Sheli is a
fairly complex tone language with an inverse animacy system.

Notable features

Type of writing system: Sheli Toj is an alphabet, but is written
in syllable blocks, much like Korean Hangeul.
Direction of writing: left to right in horizontal lines.
Though Sheli has six tones, there are no tone characters in Sheli
Toj. Instead, tones are inferred by the shape of the word, and,
in some cases, the type of consonant and vowel characters used.
Words are not separated by spaces. Certain coda consonant
characters, however, close a word, and require the next word–or
syllable–to begin with a raised dot.
Certain consonants change their pronunciation depending on
whether they occur as an onset or a coda.

Sheli Toj alphabet

Sheli Toj vowels

Vowels appear directly below the onset consonant character (vowels
above shown with initial consonant /p/).

The empty vowel carrier is used for vowel-initial syllables. The
approximants /j/ and /w/ are not full consonants, and can appear
in conjunction with other onset consonants.

Sheli Toj initial consonants

Sheli Toj final consonants

The aspirated consonants become voiceless fricatives in syllable-
final position. The aspirated velar stop has disappeared in all
but word-initial position in Sheli, and does not have a coda form.

Sheli Toj consonants

A cêwtò: is a stroke below a vowel which indicates that the coda
is a nasal homorganic to the coda stop, which is not pronounced.
Whenever a cêwtò is used, the vowel becomes lax.

Sheli Toj consonants

The codas /n/ and /s/ are older, historically, than the rest of
the codas in Sheli. These special final forms are used in words
where the coda /n/ and /s/ are old codas, and not old onsets.

Sheli Toj toness