Combining Vowels in the Tay Yo Script

Tay Yo represents an important innovation in the combination of base consonants and vowel symbols. In the Indo-Khmer model, from which the script is derived, vowels can be oriented above, below, before or after a consonant, but in Tay Yo there are only two possible positions. In general, the vowel symbol is placed after (that is to say, below) the consonant, but the symbols representing ăṅ and ău are written to the right of the consonant.The exception to this rule is the symbol representing ư, which in an open syllable is written to the right of the initial consonant, but when followed by another consonant, is written below and to the right of the initial consonant.

This article formerly appeared on ScriptSource.