𐳐

i

a sound, not a word

The vowel i, one character for one sound

Glyphs are shown in Unicode and laid out left to right. Both scripts are written right to left, so these rows are a convenience rather than a facsimile.

Sound
i /i/
Position
5
Group
Vowels
Unicode
U+10CD0

The letter

i carries /i/. It is one character for one sound, which is the organising principle of the whole alphabet: every distinct Hungarian phoneme has its own letter, with no digraphs and no diacritics doing double duty.

Written when final or when two vowels meet; otherwise frequently left out.

Rovás is written right to left, so this letter appears further left in a word than a reader used to Latin will expect.

Names and recitation

Historical Rovás left vowels out wherever it could, to save time and space on a carved stick. The rule was to write one if it ended a word, if two fell together, or if omitting it would make the word ambiguous.

The vowels e and é were dropped most consistently of all, because every consonant name already contained an e.

Modern Rovás writes every vowel. The revival exists to transliterate modern Hungarian orthography exactly, which economy of carving would defeat.

It does not mean anything

This is worth stating plainly, because visitors arriving from the Germanic runes expect otherwise.

Rovás letters have no meanings. i is a name for a sound, not a word — the consonant with a vowel put in front of it so it can be said aloud. There is no rune poem for this alphabet, no kenning tradition, no ideographic layer, and no equivalent of the Stentoften stone using a letter to stand for a concept.

That is a sharper position than the Germanic runes are in. Rune divination is modern, but the runes at least carry names meaning cattle, hail and ice, with medieval poems attached. Rovás letters are letters.

Frequently asked questions

/i/. It is a single character for a single Hungarian phoneme, which is how the whole alphabet works — no digraphs, and no diacritics doing double duty.

No. Historical carvers left vowels out wherever possible to save strokes, writing one only if it ended a word, if two fell together, or if omission would cause ambiguity. Modern Rovás writes them all.

No. Rovás letters are purely phonetic. Their names — eb, ec, ed and so on — are recitation aids, the consonant with a leading vowel, not words. There is no rune poem, no kenning tradition and no ideographic layer, which puts the script in a weaker position for divination than the Germanic runes.

Rovás

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