How Phi names people

A practice companion to the manual

A name in Phi is not a special kind of word. It is an ordinary word (warm, joy, seed) that a person carries, announced by the small particle ne the way a capital letter would announce it in English, except that you can hear ne, and no writing mode can lose it. The doctrine belongs to the manual (chapter 11 §5 owns the particles, chapter 23 owns the social art, and the canon rulings settle the rest), so this pamphlet drills: volume, judgment, until the machinery of address is reflex and the honesty it asks for is habit.

Two skills interleave throughout. The first is mechanical: placing ne, kona, and the honorifics in their fixed order, at speaking pace, without thought. The second is the one Phi actually cares about: telling the truth with them: announcing only the relationships you have, resting a name only where presence has earned it, and never once making a person taller than the words around them.

By the end of this pamphlet, you will:

• Hear the difference between a word and a name at the speed of a single particle
• Introduce yourself with the nomei formula, introduce someone else, and ask a name back
• Call to someone by name, by role, or with nothing but the call itself
• Choose among sa, ni, and le honestly, or decline all three without coldness
• Read the family register: why the primer writes ne sulae at the door and sulae at the table
• Write names in a language with no capital letters: in romanization, in gloss lines, in English narration, and in Tengwar, where there was never a case to lose

This pamphlet assumes the particle system (manual ch9) and the mindful sentence (ch10). It is a companion to manual chapter 21 and to the canon rulings Names are made of Phi and Letters.

Contents:

1. A name is a word
2. The announcing ne
3. Calling: kona
4. The three honorifics
5. The family register
6. The spoken capital
7. The open door
8. Common errors
9. Exercises
10. Appendix: quick reference

Phi cannot write a name taller than the words beside it. It can only announce that someone is coming, which is all a capital letter ever honestly meant.