Phonorasms
The Phonorasms are my concepts for personified phones (linguistic sound units, not telephones). Originally I made these characters just for French. I don't know what else to add here.
A Note Regarding IPA Transcription (For Non-Nerds)
If you're not a nerd like I am, you may assume that [j] refers to the sound of j in English jump, when in fact I use it to represent the sound of y in English yellow. This is not a mistake; I use the International Phonetic Alphabet, which isn't made for any one single language. The usage of j is consistent with how the letter j is used in languages like German, Finnish and Polish. You can read more about the IPA here.
Characters
- [b] (birch) - Basile - A bass singer who looks like a bubble blower. Bubbles come out of their mouth when they sing.
- [d] (day) - Dawoud - A drummer who plays in a band with Lili and Timothé.
- [f] (fee) - Faunus - A creature of the forest who has become secluded from the rest of society. They hiss "Fff!" while sticking out their fangs.
- [ɡ] (gift) - Gabriel - A goggles-wearing healer (un guérisseur) who mixes potions that gurgle.
- [h] (hail) - Henri - A humourless ghost who can only ever seem to sigh. In the case of French, he represents the aspirated H, where he is silent but blocks liaison with an axe (une hache).
- [θ] (three) - Zaida(?) - A snobby tourist, the type to pedantically say "You mean Barthelona?", sometimes roleplays as Spanish royalty with a lisp.
- [j] (fjord) - Yod - A sporty and somewhat rowdy character who is especially skilled at using a slingshot. They strain when pulling back: "Yyyyuh!"
- [k] (keep) - Katrina - A collector of many knickknacks (though she especially enjoys things that click), including graphemes. (c, k, ck, ch, q…)
- [l] (lake) - Lili - A singer in a band with Dawoud and Timothé.
- [m] (mix) - Minette - A baker with a cat motif, says "Mmm!" when taste-testing.
- [n] (need) - Nikola - A firefly with a neon motif, drones while lighting up the night. She is usually seen with sunglasses.
- [ŋ] (song) - Eng - A caroler, rings peoples doorbells to sing for them with a bell in hand.
- [p] (play) - Paula - Enjoys playing in the rain (la pluie), often seen carrying an umbrella (un parapluie).
- [r] (Spanish rosado) - Rashid - A flamenco dancer. He catches a rose (una rosa) between his teeth at the end of a performance.
- [s] (sun) - Samuel - Enjoys hosting barbecues with steaks and sausages. He has a vaguely serpentine motif.
- [ʃ] (shop) - Schultz - A librarian with a habit of shushing people. (This one is honestly a bit bland, I might update her…)
- [t] (ten) - Timothé - A tambourine player who plays in a band with Dawoud and Lili.
- [tʃ] (cheese) - Chaplin - An aggressively posh and jolly steam train conductor.
- [v] (very) - Vladimir - A standard dracula-style vampire. He vocalizes while sticking out his fangs.
- [w] (win) - Wilson - A fish who roleplays as a cowboy. He especially enjoys whooping his lasso around.
- [χ] (German Bach) - Khalid - A carpenter with a habit of sleeping on the job. At any given moment, nobody knows whether he's sawing wood or snoring.
- [z] (zero) - Zacharie - In many ways he is a normal bee, but he's also partially robotic and can control electricity (zap!) between his antennae.
- [a] (Spanish avión) - Astro - A rock/metal singer who wears star makeup. Their sound is them screaming into the microphone.
- [ɛ] (ever) - Ève - A sheep and goat herder who is somewhat naïve ("Eh?"). May take some cues from the character Ruselo from Pasporto al la Tuta Mondo.
- [e] (Spanish éxito) - Émilien - Mischievous and scheming, can often be heard laughing "Héhéhé !". He wears a bandanna (I just felt it was appropriate.)
- [i] (machine, Spanish isla) - Iris - A cheery photographer that is usually seen with a huge smile (Say "cheeeese!").
- [o] (Spanish onda) - Otis - A classic detective with a Holidays motif (especially Christmas, and he shares Santa's "Ho ho ho!" laugh).
- [u] (Spanish uno) - Lou - Tells spooky stories (and is especially fond of Halloween), especially involving ghosts and werewolves that howl "Uuu…".
< Back to Home Page