#conscript

[dedalvs]

Sharing some Ts'íts'àsh names starting with Ember's. Will share more about the language soon.

[conlangcrab]

Thoughts and observations on universal calligraphy applied on neography.

[mindutme]

if you don't mind me asking, what are you using to write in sdefa? (for both writing systems)

Not at all! For the older writing system I use Inkscape. I have a document set up with a grid guide and a standard line thickness that I can copy from one line to another. For the newer system, I have a font that I made, so I can use pretty much any program that can handle text for that. I designed the glyphs in Inkscape and made the font itself in FontForge.

Here’s a demo of making the word {B C B E} “cat” with a third-person pronoun suffix in both systems:

For the first sytem, each 4-note root word’s glyph is contained within a 6×6 square, which gives everything convenient proportions to get the types of curves I want without having to do lots of little adjustments. Initially I played around with copying and pasting parts of root words, since there are only 12 different note shapes which fit together, but in the end it was easier to just make each new word from scratch.

For the second system, I just set the font (and fixed the fill and stroke settings) and then typed “7274132,” which corresponds to the notes {B C B E E G A}.* Certain glyphs automatically change when a following letter is typed to form ligatures. This word doesn’t have any sharps or flats but if it did they’d be typed with a + or - respectively after the adjusted note.

[arti-evatt]

I think there should be a website/ community that is just for conlangers and worldbuilders

Every person can have a 'home page' where all your things are (language, geography, script, culture, etc...)

And then you can talk with other people about Culture-things and I will enjoy my life

[yuk-tepat]

Completing the Writing System

Well, sort of. But it’s good enough!

One of my goals for Lexember was to finally finish fleshing out the writing system. I did, although the cleanup and tweaking and stitching together loose ends extended a month into the New Year. I finished.

Until now, there were (possible) words in Yuk Tepat that couldn’t be spelled, but now it is possible to write anything by combining semantic and phonetic signs.

Above is a bunch of glyphs that can be used for phonetic value.

The whole chart depicts a range of onsets, codas, and combinations encompassing the range of syllable types in Yuk Tepat. I originally intended to fill all the squares like a bingo card. I didn’t fill it out completely. While not every syllable type has its own representation, each of them is only one degree of separation from another syllable that DOES have a sign.

By this I mean that any syllable without its own sign could be changed into a syllable with a symbol by a change of one phonetic feature.

For example, there is no sign representing /lʌj/, but /lɯj/ does have a sign. There is only one different phoneme, and /ɯ/ differs from /ʌ/ only in being high instead of low, so /lɯj/ is ‘close enough’ to work for /lʌj/.

This is very reasonable, and not too different from the ambiguity in many real writing systems. How many different sounds can English <e> make? Since Tepatic glyphs are logographic, semantic determiners can disambiguate the near-homophones.

Of course, this took years and years, and looking back I see now how I could have finished this years earlier, but whatever. I didn’t really understand how this worked when I started.

There could be, and will, be more glyphs created in the future. Most will be compound glyphs. As for ‘basic’ glyphs, the component parts, no more need be created. I may still make more if some good ones arise. But I don’t need to make anymore.There’s always more work to be done in the realm of “possible.” But also joy in fulfilling crucial criteria for a language and passing a milestone. I’m happy to say “I made” the writing system.

[helveticablanc]

After a couple years of working with it, I'm happy to announce a second edition of Wormrōte! It's got about twice as much material as the first edition, plus some little bits of Wormsong lore. Enjoy!

[sannehnagi]

Arhak astaškiik angkitš'ooqilaap at'giiš. If you give a man a fish he eats today. Tiistiluutimatiirivailaap uitani giitsili. If you teach a man to fish he eats forever. Ayaak ana šagaleqoq. But you have done neither. Agitšinngaanip a'tiigiintu airi a'ntahanngaanip šuuri, ilaruuts'oq nutl'aat'ooq ngantaharaq nngut'agari. You have stood before us eating fish after fish and chided us for being wasteful. Aranngaanip tuuassik yuunnitu a'iimbambairuningaangaa yahaš ngagati' tiiuyii. You told us that you own the river and our parents should have gotten us the same if we wanted fish. Arhak astaškiik angkitš'ooqavaap ngantaambaitsag tuuassisii ningii turaš ana arii aap'aap'aš turaš. You gave a man a fish to murder us if we are too close to the river or if we speak too loudly. Astaškilug isawihipannapi ruts'ag. We must trade fish to you in order to leave.

[mewling-central]

Working on the modern version of my new language's script, pretty content with this but may change some things.

[five-rivers]

GUESS WHAT I'M WORKING ON FELLAS

[pizzaronipasta]

Computer Cursive

Okay so, I've had an idea. Y'know how the reason why the world's writing systems look so different is often because they were developed for writing on different materials? Well, to my knowledge, there hasn't ever been a writing system developed from the ground up for handwriting on a computer using a mouse. Which is a shame, because other writing systems are so ill-suited to mouse handwriting.

The Latin alphabet was originally carved into stone. But then a cursive script came around so it could be written on paper more easily. Who's to say the same can't happen with mouse handwriting?

So I tried my hand at making my own "computer cursive." Since precision with a mouse is much harder than with a pen, chisel, or stylus, I tried removing as much fine detail from the letters as I could while keeping them distinct and recognizable. Specifically, producing strokes of precise shapes is especially hard, so I prioritized making the arrangement of strokes recognizable, no matter how the strokes themselves ended up looking. Also, since long continuous lines are less than conducive to digital error correction (ctrl+z would remove a whole word instead of just a single letter or less), and because the risk of making an error gets quite high after only a short while of continuous marking, the term "computer cursive" ended up being something of a misnomer. It was best to keep letters disconnected from each other, thus not fulfilling the definition of a cursive script. However, "computer cursive" makes for a convenient shorthand that's reflective of the thought process behind its creation, so I'm sticking with it.

Anyway, here's what I came up with:

So first of all, it looks cool as shit if I do say so myself, though that's probably just because of the calligraphy pen brush I used (and I recommend you do the same if you ever try using this). But in seriousness, I'm very happy with how easy it is to recognize most of the letters here, and the rest are easy to get used to.

Some usage notes:

the letter c should start going diagonally down and left, and gradually curve further downwards. it doesn't matter how far it ends up curving, as long as the curve is noticeable

the letter k needs its bottom-right stroke to be curved as seen in the image, or it'll look too much like an h

yes, the letter o is a triangle. deal with it

p and q are distinguished by the lengths of their rightmost strokes: p's is longer (roughly as tall as the other stroke) and q's is shorter

r and v are distinguished in the same way: r's is longer (taller than the other stroke by a noticeable margin) and v's is shorter (more symmetrical). also, r's stem should technically be vertical while v should technically be completely symmetrical, but that isn't a feasible distinction to reliably make in practice, so don't worry about it

the letter s should start going diagonally up and left, and gradually curve down and around to start going diagonally down and right. it doesn't matter how far it ends up curving, as long as it fits this description

the letter u should start going straight down, or down and slightly right, and gradually curve further right. it doesn't matter how far it ends up curving, as long as the curve is noticeable

In general, don't worry too much about it looking tidy—it's specifically meant to be serviceable despite inevitably looking sloppy from time to time.

[man-n-space]

Adventures in Conlanging #1

How it¹ started:

How it's going:

"It" being Classical Ngare n Tim Ar, the main focus language of my conworld/story setting Twin Aster. At top is the original writing system I devised fifteen-ish years ago. At bottom is some preliminary work on one of the current writing systems² I've devised for it, a hieroglyphic system à la, say, Egyptian in its heyday.

Yes, writing systems plural. There are four main ways to write CT (the "four modes", Höhsë ü gûrn Ahsaha), divisible into two pairs (eastalri, sg. gestalri): Gestalri n ḫisí (image-based) Sasaha n orón (color mode) – The OG system of Tim Ar writing, which saw a revival when Bleffys Údd came around and reëstablished the empire (though for everyday official purposes the sasaha n maḫneḫ was typically employed; see below). Sort of like Aztec hieroglyphs; color is meaningful and everything is little stylized drawings. Supplanted by other scripts and modes back in the day, it has seen a resurgence as a sort of blend of visual art, graphic design, calligraphy, and floriography. Sasaha n maḫneḫ (hieroglyphic mode) – Your bog-standard hieroglyphics, pictured in the lower two images above. Black-and-white (or, at least, color isn't usually a meaningful channel, unlike with the sasaha n orón). Essentially Egyptian with the serial glyphs filed off. Gestalri n oisog (cuneiform-based) Sasaha n Atki (Atskian mode) – Some upstart named Atki is credited with creating this in frustration after the eastalri n ḫisí were reserved for the upper crust. Originated from Monumental Khaya hieroglyphic phonetic complements. Sasaha n Lemhár (Levarian mode) – Sort of a calligraphic or stylized version of Atskian mode. No horizontal lines, and lines are canted by 30° from horizontal (left-to-upper-right diagonal), with individual blocks kind of sideways-stacked—think something like "////" for the layout, though each slash/block is much less vertical.

(cc @tzarina-alexandra because you seemed interested)

[dedalvs]

I mentioned that Christian Thalmann got the chance to create a script for Shu for Shadow and Bone. This is it! I knew he’d do an amazing job, and he knocked it out of the park with this one.

[daybreaksys]

the Aurebesh isn't very great from a conscripting perspective. not only because it's a fucking cipher (a mere font to write in English, with English nonsensical spelling rules) but also because all letters are blocky squares.

Which us fine because this isn't the focus of Star Wars, it's purpose isn't to work well linguistically or practically, it is to set an atmosphere and pretend it's not English

Chinese, Japanese and other syllabic scripts work that way because each symbol stands for a while syllable, not an individual sound. and English has syllables with massive consonant clusters like scratch

an alphabet needs many tall, thin letters like l i r q r t p d f h j k l b

if all letters are fat and wide like ლ then any text occupies far too much space and is overly long. and larger chunks of text consume exponentially more space, paper, ink, digital pages, stablishment titles, etc, not to mention being annoying to read

the simplest solution is to create thinner versions of each letter, making them thinner and thinner until it's a totally different alphabet

a different solution that preserves the blocky feel is to combine letters together into ligatures, like in Hindi, specially for common words and consonant combinations, so, fusing E and R into a single ER letter, for example.

to illustrate, this is "Republic" in canon Aurebesh:

and this is "Republic" after combining some letters:

we could go more aggressive and combine more than two letters, but speakers would have to know all ligatures, but that's fine, Hindi speakers learn hundreds or millions of letter combinations and they're not random, they are intuitive

now with Skywalker:

of course, i'd still prefer to make an alphabet which actually makes sense

real life example: Korean

if we wrote English with the Hangul, Republic would be 러풉맄

[ㄹ=r][ㅓ=e][ㅍ=p][ㅜ=u][ㅂ=b][ㄹ=l][ㅣ=i][ㅋ=k]

ㄹ+ㅓ=러

ㅍ+ㅜ+ㅂ=풉

ㄹ+ㅣ+ㅋ=맄

canon Aurebesh would spell it ㄹㅓㅍㅜㅂㄹㅣㅋ

Hindi:

र=e रे=re फ=p फु=pu

ब=b ल=l ब्ल=bl ब्लि=bli ख=c

रेफुब्लिख = Republic

canon Aurebesh would spell it रएफउबलइख

[mindutme]

T’owal T’uesday #12

A few days ago @dedalvs reblogged a very cute image that demonstrates some particles in Ancient Greek. I decided to edit a T’owal version!

All of the T’owal words in the image are actually verbs, but you can use them as prepositions or adverbs as well. In some cases the verb is “to be __” (e.g. “to be above”) but when it’s not as obvious I’ll put the verb version in parentheses. They are:

gyo above · as upon · ul up (climb, ascend) · lid down (descend) · hi in · fdeno on both sides of (surround) · gos out of (exit) · xmes into (enter) · tswos against (touch) · gus under · wan through · dne away from (come/go away from) · syen beside · xi toward (come/go to)

Since there are a few more relevant T’owal verbs, here’s an after picture:

hlon away/apart from · oft’e behind · ts’ana in front of · thyo between (or among) · agsil facing · enk’et tso stuffed with

Some other relevant vocabulary:

dyesi mouse · tsof cat · pwath cheese

The word dyesi is actually a reference to Jessie Peterson, aka @quothalinguist!

Finally, here’s how you say “I know he ate a cheese” in T’owal: Byóx sú í, mám mó pwáth.

[velaraffricate]

so I've been working on my latest conlang, irkan osla (or just osla for short), for a bit now and would like to showcase its writing system in this post! osla has a syllabic alphabet, not too dissimilar to korean hangul, where letters are stacked according to certain rules to make syllable blocks.

osla's syllable structure is (C)(C)V(V)(C), here's how the stacks work for each type of syllable:

all letters have small, wide, and tall forms depending on their position in the syllable. here are all the letters with their IPA value and romanization:

and here's an example text! i translated parts of the minecraft end poem into osla. maybe i'll make another post just focusing on the grammar when it's more developed. the poem says in english:

What did this player dream? This player dreamed of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. It dreamed it created. And it dreamed it destroyed. It dreamed it hunted, and was hunted. It dreamed of shelter.

Does it know that we love it? That the universe is kind? Sometimes, through the noise of its thoughts, it hears the universe, yes.

this post is getting long, so under the cut you'll find a "sans-serif" version as well as the poem in osla and its gloss if you're also a linguistics nerd and wanna know what's going on under the hood (the roman numerals stand for the 3 noun classes)! thanks for reading!

The way regular people would write something quickly on a piece of paper with a regular pen is an aspect of creating neographies that I feel is often overlooked, so I developed this sans-serif version that people would probably be more likely to use when writing their shopping lists or diary entries:

And, finally, here's the poem translation:

pak oṇḍul phan wimbakis?

DET.I.SG.PROX play-AGN what dream-PST.3SG.I?

pak oṇḍul lümaṇiuṣerothi han buloni an wimbakis. kaṣkhaothi han nilothi an. wimbakis, run sëmamkis. wimbakis, run xokthakis, han bumxokthakis. zöga an wimbakis.

DET.I.SG.PROX play-AGN sunlight-II.SG.DAT and tree-II.PL.DAT of dream-PST.3SG.I. Fire-II.SG.DAT and water-II.SG.DAT of. dream-PST.3SG.I, that create-PST.3SG.I. dream-PST.3SG.I, that hunt-PST.3SG.I, and PASS-hunt-PST.3SG.I. shelter of dream-PST.3SG.I.

ṭauraka, run kaak samare? run glutsüna flia?

know-NP.3SG.I, that 3SG.I.ABS love-NP.1PL? that universe kind?

imba ethamo, khaṣiŋli an ka’am hu’aŋni pitë, glutsüna ṣaraka, ti.

some time-NOM.III.PL, noise-ACC.II.SG of 3SG.I.GEN thought-NOM.III.PL through, universe hear-NP.3SG.I, yes.

[illustratus]

Les Marie-Louise by Jacques Onfroy de Bréville