Welcome To The New Arcade

Arcadespeak, rendered as Árkadſpëk, is a constructed variety of English that uses an extended alphabet to provide a more phoentic rendering of the English language as well as containing additional words from other languages, primarily German and Toki Pona. Arcadespeak is fluid and can have different spellings based on accents, so if it sounds right it is right. This page is written with General American English in mind, though it does somewhat apply to other accents and dialects of English.

The TH sound is represented by Þ at the start of a word, and Ð in the middle or end of a word.

The SH sound is represented by Š.

The CH sound is represented by C. Hard C is replaced by K, and Soft C is replaced by S.

The Hard G sound remains as G, while Soft G is replaced by J.

The NG sound (like in "going") is replaced by Ŋ.

The sound that S makes in words like "measure" is represented by Ž.

A makes the sound of the underlined vowels in "mate".

Æ makes the sound of the underlined vowels in "mat" and "cat".

Á makes the sound of the underlined vowels in "talk", "start", "father", and "are".

Å makes the sound of the underlined vowels in "idea".

É represents schwa, making the sound of the underlined vowels in "the", "us", "again", "american", and "another".

E makes the sound of the underlined vowels in "met".

Ë makes the sound of the underlined vowels in "bee", "being", and "toki".

When a word ends in Ë, Ë is replaced by Ê, but makes the same sound.

Ï makes the sound of the underlined vowels in "I", "time", "fly", "high", "pie", and "eye".

I makes the sound of the underlined vowels in "big", "busy", "England", "been", and "myth".

O makes the sound of the underlined letters in "open", "coat", "grow", "although", and "toe".

Ó makes the sound of the underlined vowels in "dog" and "cough".

Ö makes the sound of the underlined vowels in "now" and "house".

U makes the sound of the underlined vowels in "sun", "money", "does", "touch", and "flood".

Ú makes the sound of the underlined vowels in "good".

Ü makes the sound of the underlined vowels in "who", "food", "music", "you", "new".

Ÿ makes the sound of the underlined vowels in "boy" and "voice".

Ŗ does not appear on its own, but instead modifies the sound of other letters.

ÁŖ makes the sound of the underlined letters in "hair", "share", "bear", and "there".

ÉŖ makes the sound of the underlined letters in "ear", "beer", and "here".

IŖ makes the sound of the underlined letters in "person", "nurse", "bird", "work", and "earth".

ÓŖ makes the sound of the underlined letters in "tour" and "orange".

ÚŖ makes the sound of the underlined letters in "Europe" and "cure".

Ĥ and ĤŖ are silent and used to make words look better and more rounded out. Due to the "if it sounds right it is right" rule, these letters are optional and purely aesthetic.

ẞ is known as Long S and makes the same sound as S, which is known as Round S.

A Round S is always used at the start and end of a word with S: "his", "kumplans", "sukſes".

If there are two Long S's in a row, a Round S replaces the second Long S.

Before an apostrophe (indicating an omitted letter) a Round S is used: "us'd" and "klos'd".

Before and after an F, a Round S is used: "ófset", "sætisfækšin".

Round S is used before K, B, and U: "æsk", "husband".

Before a breaking hyphen at the end of the line, a Long S must be used: "Šæftſ-báŗê". (When hyphenation was not required, the word was spelled Šæftsbáŗê, with a Round S.)

WH in English is spelled and pronounced as V in Arcadespeak, so "what" becomes "vét".

When referring to a person, place the word "yán" before their name.

Color names are taken from both Toki Pona and Anglish. While other shades have names and exist just like in English, the following table lists various colors:

Pronouns in Arcadespeak follow a simplified and altered version of my previous English Pronoun Reformation, shown here:

Second Person Singular Pronouns have a word conjugation much like Early Modern English, with "Thou art (Þö árt)" being correct and "Thou are (Þö ár)" being incorrect.