In this chapter we will be discussing the physical and mental representations of sound and magic. Phonetics refers to the study of speech sounds. This is different from Acoustics which studies all kinds of sounds. We will study acoustic theories later in this book, but for now, it is sufficient to recognise that acoustics refers to the physical traits of a sound, while phonetics refers to the mental representation of those sounds. There is a significant relationship between these two fields of study as they inform each other.

Phonology on the other hand represents the patterns and rules with which languages apply these sounds. Phonology is especially important for inventing charms as it will inform which incantations are possible and valid. Incantations that violate phonological rules will not work. Improving your knowledge in this area will improve your general pronunciation in any magical language, and

I should also note a few relevant notations for your reference. Sounds enclosed in side slashes ie. /a/ refers to the phonemic transcription, or the way it sounds in our head's mental categories. Close brackets ie. [a] refer to phonetic transcription and capture the way something was actually spoken. This includes more specific diacritics and allophones which will be discussed later in the chapter. An asterix marks an incorrect pronunciation.

Phonetics

There are two major aspects that allow you to identify any human produced sound; these are place and manner of articulation. Place refers to where the 'articulators' like the tongue, jaw and teeth are placed in the mouth at the time of the sound. The manner references the way the sound is articulated by how much air is allowed to flow through and at what time. For example, a plosive sound is a small burst of air, while a fricative is a steady stream of air. A plosive at the teeth would be a [d] or a [t]. While a fricative in the same place would be a [ð] or [θ]. As you can see, sounds are also distinguished by whether they are voiced or not. When you hold your hand to your throat and say [b] and [p], do you notice that your throat vibrates on [b] but not on [p]? This is because [b] is voiced.

A chart called the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was made to map out the different sounds and give each unique sound its own symbol so as to be used across languages. For the rest of this book, I will be referring to the IPA transcription, so please keep it handy.

Another important feature of the IPA is the vowel quadrilateral. Imagine the mouth space for a moment and then picture a cross section of that space as someone is saying a vowel. The tongue's position front or backward in conjunction with the jaw's movement up or down will determine the overall shape of the vowel. The lips can also be open or close to further articulate the vowel.

The main thing to remember about vowels is that they are relative to the sounds around them. This is referred to as the speaker normalization problem. In terms of spellcasting, the vowels tend to be the most forgiving element of pronunciation. This could be one of the reasons that some scripts simply choose not to include them even though vowels hold many important structural functions.

Phonology

Phonology composes the rules of a given language that dictate how sounds are used and in which places. These rules can be different from language to language but they help to mark important word boundaries and define what words are allowed to look like in that language.

For example [gl] is a perfectly acceptable combination of sounds to start a word but not to finish one. Likewise [ns] would never appear at the beginning, but may appear at the end. This allows us to identify where one word ends and the other starts in a continuous stream of sounds.

/lɛdʒɪlɪmɛns/ /glesiʌs/

'Legilimens' 'Glacius'

Another important feature of phonology is the distribution of allophones. An allophone is a variant of a sound that is used only in certain contexts. For example the /t/ in butterbeer could be pronounced differently depending on the dialect.

[bʌɾəɹbiɹ] [bʌtəɹbiɹ]

"Butterbeer" "Butterbeer"

American English British English

In American English, the [t] is flapped making a [d] like sound, while the British pronunciation includes a much clearer [t] sound. In this case the context is dialect, but in other cases the context may be position in the word, or even preceding or following sounds.

For a slightly more subtle example, place your hand in front of your mouth and say the following spell.

[ɛkspɛktoʊ p'atɹoʊnʌm]

"Expecto patronum"

Notice that the second /p/ sound has a much stronger puff of air immediately after. This is called aspiration and applies only to non-voiced plosives at the beginning of a word in English. While these two are distinct sounds in many other languages, English views them in the same mental category with phonological rules that dictate which one is used when and where.

Allophones are important to be aware of in your native language as they can interfere with your pronunciation in other languages, especially ancient ones. Become familiar with the phonetic inventory of your language so that you will be able to pronounce and perform your incantations with more precision and accuracy.

Optimality Theory

I spoke earlier in this chapter about the mental representation of magic and now I can finally address this important connection. We have now address that speech sounds have mental categories that are organised in certain ways. Likewise, magic is a mystical energy or force that can be categorised into certain elements; incantation, will, concentration, gesture and category. These elements have rules that dictate how they interact and relate to each other. For the purposes in this chapter, we will mostly be looking at incantation. Incantations are given rules called constraints which can work together or contradict each other.

We can test which incantations will work through optimality theory. This theory ranks which constraints are most important in order to predict which potential candidate is the best option. Allow me to explain through a simple example:

The constraints are ordered from left to right and an asterisk marks a violation of the constraint. The candidate with the fewest violations in the highest ranking constraints will prove to be the optimal incantation. The number of possible candidates are infinite as they should vary by a single variable. The examples shown are phonological variants for the sake of this lesson. The (!) notation marks a critical error, meaning the candidate is eliminated.

Note that even though it is the lowest ranking and therefore does not eliminate the prime option. As the constraints apply to all magical incantations, many are irrelevant and will not be shown for every example. The ranking of the constraints will depend upon the language and in some cases the spell. Typically you will only need 3-5 constraints to make an educated presumption about which incantation to use.