The system of orthography employed on this website uses standard English punctuation, however it should not be thought that Zurvár has exact analogs for such entities as full stops, exclamation marks or commas. This page gives a run down of the most common punctuation marks in Zurvár, and how they are rendered in the English Orthography.
Ze'rábas, Konte and Kontedùtá
Ze'rábas
KonteThe two most commonly used punctuation marks in Zurvár are the ze'rábas and the konte, which are analogous to the English full stop (period) and comma. The ze'rábas ("word end") is used to indicate the end of one sentence and the start of another. It should be noted that when there is no following sentence, such as at the end of a paragraph, ze'rábas is not used. The words merely end without punctuation.
The konte ("pause") is used to indicate a break or pause with a sentence. It is generally correct to add a konte to the start and end of each sentence fragment, even when this would be incorrect in English. Konte is not used to separate items in a list. List items are spaced by either the conjunction man ("and") or the abbreviation mn, which is often skipped when reading aloud. Finally konte is also used in the same fashion as the English "double quotes" when indicating quoted speech.
KontedùtáThere is one additional punctuation mark, the kontedùtá or "hard pause". This is sort of "half-way" between the ze'rábas and konte, and is used to insert one sentence into the middle of another, somewhat analagous to the English colon or semi-colon, or parenthesis. Its use is comparitively rare however.
Deñè
DeñèThe deñè ("break") is used to indicate that a voldránì (vowel) doesn't combine with a following pereþ (consonant) in such words as su'ref or ze'rá. Occasionaly it is also used to separate a pereþ from a following voldránì or pereþ. It is rendered as an apostrophe in the English orthography.
Ze'ráná and Kwestyonmárk
Ze'ráná
KwestyonmárkThe ze'ráná ("word imperative") is an almost direct analogue for the English exclamation mark or exclamation point. It indicates that the proceeding statement is an exclamation, an imperative or otherwise emphasised. It does not however double as a full stop or period as the exclamation mark does - the ze'rábas should still be used to end a sentence after the ze'ráná.
The kwestyonmárk is a relatively recent invention, created due to increasing exposure to European languages. Questions in Zurvár are readily identifiable as they invariably start with a "question word" (delò, delòtá, delòm, etc), however for those unfamilar with the language it can be tricky to pick this out. The kwestyonmárk was created to act as an aid for those using Zurvár as a second language, and operates identically to the English question mark (after which it is named), although as with the ze'ráná it is not sufficient to end a sentence by itself.
Examples
The following example shows typical use of the ze'rábas, konte and ze'ráná...
In the English orthography it would be rendered...
Pelben "kert! dò anatnà. Dò rîdìazurn mal dò sà holvetlá tát!" pevlinèak.*
A line from the Zurvár folk tale Lùná Kalaz or The Serpent's Thanks - "No!" Replied the mouse "You are my enemy! If you were free you would certainly eat me!"
Còakþal and Còakaz
Còakþal
CòakazadatThe standard currency of Zurvár Arèáná, established by the Konsâtèum in ST0071 is the còakþal, which generally hovers around two United States dollars in value. Each còakþal breaks down into 25 còakaz. The physical currency is in the form of round (1c¢, 2c¢, 5c¢ and 10c¢) and square (20c¢, 1 $C and 2 $C) molybdenum alloy coins, and plastic polymer notes (5 $C, 10 $C, 25 $C, 50 $C, 125 $C, 625 $C and 3125 $C). The còakþal symbol is derived from a combination of the oksos letters cá and þá, the còakaz symbol is a diminutive form. Both were created by Konsâtèum designers prior to the issue of the currency.
The word còakþal is derived from còak "unit of currency" and þalonek "molybdenum". Còakaz is derived from còak and gaz "coin", although in casual use it is usually just referred to as gaz.