Among the various beings of legend, it is only the most prominent that stories have anything to say on aspects of their language or culture. The elves, fairies, orcs, goblins, etc. have all attained this coveted place among myths. However, and most surprisingly, there has been little attempt by scholars to record and document the linguistics of mermaids. A strange seeming contradiction, as mermaids are so often regarded as one class closest to humans. Many species seem to reflect either the best or worst aspects of humankind, such as the elves extolling every good virtue or goblins characterizing our lower nature. Yet mermaids are often not an idealized nor outright barbaric race. Rather, merfolk would appear to hold a sort of middle ground much like people do. For mermaids are neither the outright savior nor destroyer of humankind but a reflection of it. Accordingly, below one may find a brief outline of the mermaid alphabet.
Regarding the mermaid alphabet, I the copyright holder waive all of my rights to its design worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. The characters are released into the public domain and made available under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
ALPHABET
Of the mermaid language, itself, little can be said. Mermaid tongue is both unpronounceable by and incomprehensible to humans. However, the mermaid alphabet (or edianaic) offers a wide range of flexibility. It possess dual phonetics depending on context capable of representing the harmonious singing sounds of mermaid language and then again vowels and consonants more akin to human speech. Of the mermaid alphabet there are 28 letters. These letters are called Anin (AH), Bess (B), Chet (soft CH), Chulk (hard CH), Dans (D), Elm (EH), Frulwn (F), Gromul (G), Hulek (H), Ikwa (EE), Jhul (J), Kai (K), Lear (L), Moz (M), Nog (N), Oeya (OH), Pudwa (P), Raut (R), Suset (S), Shaila (SH), Tully (T), Tsasonet (TS), Unk (OO), Vroff (V), Wadi (W), Yul (Y), Ziel (Z) and Zhul (ZH). Characters are written from left to right, but a key difference is that they are written from the bottom up. Characters are only written from top down when otherwise it would cause a stroke to be made from right to left.
PRONUNCIATION
 | ANIN (AH): ah, as in papa |
 | BESS (B): b, as in boy |
 | CHET (soft CH): ch, as in chime |
 | CHULK (hard CH): c, as in loch |
 | DANS (D): d, as in dad |
 | ELM (EH): eh, as in met |
 | FRULWN (F): f, as in father |
 | GROMUL (G): hard g, as in great |
 | HULEK (H): h, as in hello |
 | IKWA (EE): ee, as in see |
 | JHUL (J): j, as in just |
 | KAI (K): k, as in Karen |
 | LEAR (L): l, as in love |
 | MOZ (M): m, as in mom |
 | NOG (N): n, as in nose |
 | OEYA (O): o, as in snow |
 | PUDWA (P): p, as in pop |
 | RAUT (R): r, as in Romero |
 | SUSET (S): s, as in sun |
 | SHAILA (SH): sh, as in sharp |
 | TULLY (T): t, as in tango |
 | TSASONET (TS): ts, as in hits |
 | UNK (OO): oo, as in food |
 | VROFF (V): v, as in victor |
 | WADI (W): w, as s in water |
 | YUL (Y/AYE): y, as in yes, or, as a vowel, aye as in good bye |
 | ZIEL (Z): z, as in zebra |
 | ZHUL (ZH): zh, as in zhoosh |
