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The script includes nineteen syllabic signs. Fifteen of them have the value “consonant + /a/.” The default vowel /a/ can be modified by adding one of the three vocalic signs *e, i,* and *o.* Like in English, the sign e has three values: /e/, /ə/ (schwa), and zero. The zero value is used to write consonant clusters or final consonants, for instance *qore* "ruler,” pronounced /kʷur/. The sign *o* is used for /u/ and /o/. Four additional syllabic signs have a fixed vocalic value: three of them represent “consonant + *e*” (*ne, se, te,* with the three values of *e*), one represents “consonant + *o*” (*to*). For initial vowels, there is a single sign transliterated a, which represents /a/, /u/, and probably /o/ and /ə/. Initial /e/ and /i/ were written *e* and *i* until the first century CE. In later times, they were written *ye* and *yi* with a dummy *y,* which was not pronounced. Finally, the texts include a word-divider, made of two dots like our modern colon, which is used (more or less regularly) between words or more commonly between the different clauses of a sentence.
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