The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [232]
Wyrd (trans. of Dev. tingedd.) Fate, destiny; the inescapable problems carried over from a sentient being’s last incarnation.
APPENDICES
A NOTE ON DEVERRY DATING
Deverry dating begins at the founding of the Holy City, approximately year 76 C.E. The reader should remember that the old Celtic New Year falls on the day we call November 1, so that winter is the first season of a new year.
A NOTE ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF DEVERRY WORDS
The language spoken in Deverry is a member of the P-Celtic family. Although closely related to Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, it is by no means identical to any of these actual languages and should never be taken as such.
Vowels are divided by Deverry scribes into two classes: noble and common. Nobles have two pronunciations; commons, one.
A as in father when long; a shorter version of the same sound, as in far, when short.
O as in bone when long; as in pot when short.
W as the oo in spook when long; as in roof when short. Y as the i in machine when long; as the e in butter when short.
E as in pen.
I as in pin.
U as in pun.
Vowels are generally long in stressed syllables; short in unstressed. Y is the primary exception to this rule. When it appears as the last letter of a word, it is always long whether that syllable is stressed or not.
Diphthongs generally have one consistent pronunciation.
AE as the a in mane.
AI as in aisle.
AU as the ow in how.
EO as a combination of eh and oh.
EW as in Welsh, a combination of eh and oo.
IE as in pier.
OE as the oy in boy.
UI as the North Welsh wy, a combination of oo and ee. Note that OI is never a diphthong, but is two distinct sounds, as in carnoic, (Kar-noh-ik).
Consonants are mostly the same as in English, with these exceptions:
C is always hard as in cat.
G is always hard as in get.
DD is the voiced th as in the, but the voicing is more pronounced than in English. It is opposed to TH, the unvoiced sound as in thin or breath. (This is the sound that the Greeks called the Celtic tau.)
R is heavily rolled.
RH is a voiceless R, approximately pronounced as if it were spelled hr in Deverry proper. In Eldidd, the sound is fast becoming indistinguishable from R.
DW, GW, and TW are single sounds, as in Gwendolen or twit.
Y is never a consonant.
I before a vowel at the beginning of a word is consonantal, as it is in the plural ending -ion, pronounced yawn.
Doubled consonants are both sounded clearly, unlike in English. Note, however, that DD is a single letter, not a doubled consonant.
Accent is generally on the penultimate syllable, but compound words and place names are often an exception to this rule.
Table of Incarnations
About the Author
THE SPIRIT STONE
Katharine Kerr was born in Ohio in 1944 and now lives in San Fransisco. Her extensive reading in the fields of classical archaeology and medieval and Dark Ages history and literature has had a clear influence on her work. Her novels have been published around the world and she is a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic.
By Katharine Kerr
The Deverry Series:
DAGGERSPELL
DARKSPELL
DAWNSPELL
DRAGONSPELL
A TIME OF EXILE
A TIME OF OMENS
A TIME OF WAR
A TIME OF JUSTICE
THE RED WYVERN
THE BLACK RAVEN
THE FIRE DRAGON
THE GOLD FALCON
THE SPIRIT STONE
Other Fiction:
POLAR CITY BLUES
FREEZEFRAMES
SNARE
With Mark Kreighbaum:
PALACE
Copyright
HarperVoyager
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This paperback edition 2008
FIRST EDITION
Copyright © Katharine Kerr 2007
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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