Keenir's scratchpad -

[keenir]

I'm not aiming to make a conlang with trilitral roots...I just needed to light a fire under me, and I had some nice-looking consonant-pairs from helping a friend learn the Ancient Egyptian alphabet on Wondrium. So these are just the starting point that will hopefully grow into better and better statements, and when it grows, they might be kept as Easter Eggs or may be tossed aside.

DS
[d.s]
Meaning: Thus, therefore, it follows (that)...
Origin: "rocks fall, everyone dies".
Produces: [dys] = thus; [dos] = Q;

GWN
[gw.n]
Meaning: I say, "..."
Origin: A bit of Gwen and a bit of Red Green.
Produces: [gwyn] = I say; [gwyn.gwy ... gwyn.gwy] = "..."

HL
[h.l]
Meaning: place, LOC (locative),
Origin: Holy of Holies.
Produces: [hyl] = place; [hol] = corral, space; [hol.ol] = a thing;

Locatives:
hyl can be used as a locative, so long as it is not prefixed by a radical/classifier (at this point, i'm not sure which way I'm going to take them, so my few notes call them by both names)

ma = close by, near; closed, shut
sa = open; can be far away or nearby
ek / -ek = inwards, enter, within

Reduplication:
-ol



.

(but yes, it's a real idiolect that I'm keeping to myself for now...)

.
Dos - hol.ol ma hol, hyl-ek sa hol
Q - thing close corral, place-inward open space
A private thing in a public place?
Gwyn.gwy (dos practice) gwyn.gwy
I say (Q practice) I say.
"Practice?"

[bradrn]

But as I was finishing the first line, a little voice in the back of my head asked "if you wrote the word order right-to-left, would it be equally valid if all the letters in each word were left-to-right, and if all the letters in each word were right-to-left?"
(apologies, but the question used to be a lot more confusing before i typed it out)

https://www.deviantart.com/rodlox/art/Missive-858632743

Thoughts?

In natural scripts, if a script is written right to left, that means just that: the first letter is at the right end of the sentence, and writing proceeds left from that. A Hebrew example:

Code: Select all

שלומ, אני בראדרן, אני גר בסידני
indisb rg ina ,nrdarb ina ,molʃ

(Yes, my spelling is quite probably appalling… I haven’t done Hebrew in a while.)

Or, in LTR order like what we’re familiar with: ⟨ʃlom, ani bradrn, ani gr bsidni⟩. (Note that this is an orthographic representation of an abjad, so it leaves out some of the vowels.)

By contrast, you seem to be suggesting this order, with the words written from right to left, but the letters within the word left to right (if I’m understanding correctly):

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מולש, ינא ןרדארב, ינא רג ינדיסב
bsidni gr ani ,bradrn ani ,ʃlom

This is, as far as I’m aware, unattested in natural scripts. I can think of at least two reasons why:

• Writing was originally without word divisions. In such a situation, it is quite natural to simply write all letters in a line, rather than switching between RTL and LTR orders in what would appear to be a random fashion.
• Perhaps more relevantly, using different writing directions for words and letters is simply impractical: to write a word, you would have to guess how long the word will be when written, leave a gap of just the right size, then write the word within that gap. This is, to say the least, fairly tricky. (I tried it; it’s amazing how many times I managed to get words which were overlapping or had huge gaps.)

So, to summarise: you can of course do anything you want, but if you want to make this a realistic (or practical) conscript, you’ll want to avoid mixing writing directions in this particular way.

[sasasha]

I did develop a script in which each letter was written with a roughly left-to-right directionality, but the letters were arranged right-to-left. This functioned fine, partly because each letter was mostly ergonomically focused around downward strokes, which simply had detail to the right of them (i.e. 'behind' them in direction of writing), and there was no expectation to join each letter cursively.

Because the level of detail to the right was roughly consistent, it didn't have the spacing issues bradrn mentions. I think yours would meet that issue more though, with glyphs having varying widths. This also makes it less ergonomical to write 'each letter backwards', I think.

It's also worth asking why your script might come to be written this way. For mine, the reasoning was a 90° rotation of the direction of writing overall, to match neighbouring cultures' practices, changing the position of the 'stave' the letter sat on but maintaining the form of each letter. I'm not sure I can think of a reason that your conpeople would choose to write in such a way, though. Maybe you can!

[keenir]

Thank you both very much!

Because the level of detail to the right was roughly consistent, it didn't have the spacing issues bradrn mentions. I think yours would meet that issue more though, with glyphs having varying widths. This also makes it less ergonomical to write 'each letter backwards', I think.

most of those glyphs have since been scrapped; but they served their purpose in making it easier for me to test different ideas and layouts.

It's also worth asking why your script might come to be written this way. For mine, the reasoning was a 90° rotation of the direction of writing overall, to match neighbouring cultures' practices, changing the position of the 'stave' the letter sat on but maintaining the form of each letter. I'm not sure I can think of a reason that your conpeople would choose to write in such a way, though. Maybe you can!

Currently, my thought is that the regular writing would be boustrephon normally, but then when we get to a person's name, we make the start of a cartouche, then the first syllable maybe maybe second syllable as well - the name always going the same direction in a document, regardless of which direction the rest of the text of that line are going, and then end the cartouche...then continue the boustrephon.

Making it only a syllable or two - particularly with a syllabary - would make it easy on the scribes to get the right distances, even if they write the second syllable first...or that was my reasoning thus far.

[bradrn]

Actually, I think I may have misinterpreted your question: in a predominantly RTL writing system, were you asking whether words can be written LTR, or whether letters can be written LTR? If the former (which was how I interpreted it), then as I said, probably not; if the latter, then yes, that’s definitely possible (and in fact how many Hebrew letters are written).

[keenir]

Actually, I think I may have misinterpreted your question: in a predominantly RTL writing system, were you asking whether words can be written LTR, or whether letters can be written LTR? If the former (which was how I interpreted it), then as I said, probably not; if the latter, then yes, that’s definitely possible (and in fact how many Hebrew letters are written).

i apologize for any confusion which has arisen. The focus of my question (and in looking at it now, i see it wasn't sufficiently clear) was if a word/name can be flipped in mid-statement...overall/sentence directionality was meant to be secondary or tertiary in importance.

Thank you both for answering despite my lack of clarity.


I was speaking of the sort of switch like if I { YNOT } did this {as we're conversing in LTR English}

siht did { TONY } I fi ekil hctiws fo tros eht fo gnikaeps saw I {is this what you mean by reversing letters, or did you mean more like flipping e to ɘ?}

this did { TONY } i if like switch of sort the of speaking was I {I considered this, but then disgarded it - too much headache for this stage of t'bak development}

this did { YNOT } i if like switch of sort the of speaking was I

[bradrn]

OK, perhaps it would help if I include a demonstration:

rtl-ltr.jpg (69.07 KiB) Viewed 164881 times

In this diagram, the lines are numbered as follows:

1. This line is just normal English — everything written from left to right (LTR).
2. This line is thoroughly right to left (RTL): letters, words and phrases are all written starting from the right. This is the normal situation in RTL languages. (The reversal of letters is normal as well, especially when languages transition from one writing direction to another: e.g. Greek and Latin letters are reversed compared to their Phonecian counterparts.)
3. This line is the same as line 3, except for the name in the middle, which is written LTR. I’m not aware of any language which uses this system. (Though an approximate precedent exists in the form of Arabic writing, which is RTL except for numbers, written LTR.)
4. Line 4 is like line 3, except with individual letters written starting at the left. I’m not aware of any language which does this, possibly since you run into spacing issues — the only reason the spacing is normal here is because I have the lines above as a reference for letter width. (And in fact, when I do try this without a reference, there are spacing issues all over the place, and more often than not I end up slipping into reversing the letters as in line 2!)
5. Line 5 is a mixture of LTR and RTL — words are written LTR but arranged RTL. The spacing issues are even more pronounced with this one, though again you can’t see that here.

I also give a handwritten sample of Hebrew for reference. (This is the same text as in my previous post, just handwritten.) In general, this conforms to the pattern in line 2: each letter is written starting from the right, the letters are arranged into words starting from the right, and the words are written starting from the right. (Though there are exceptions: some letters e.g. ד and ר are written most easily starting from the left, and I believe numbers are also written starting from the left.)

[keenir]

OK, perhaps it would help if I include a demonstration:

it helps immensely; much appreciated.

*goes to contemplate this on the script*


For one step of analyzing the character names and place names of the game, I split them apart - first into sets of CV, then into sets of VC...I am, granted, omitting from this pair of lists the consonants and vowels which ended up alone. Thats a different chart.

Disclaimer: these glyphs were assigned before I got my first reply in this thread - though these glyphs may be replaced if that is found to be for the best.

More: show

CV:
yla [jlɑ]
ri [ri] . ree [ri] .
ti [ti] . tu [tu] .
na [nɑ] . nia [ni.ɑ] .
ma [mɑ] .
sia [si.ɑ] .
vi [vi] .
li [li] . lu [lu] . le [le] . la [lɑ] . lia [li.ɑ] .
ca [keɪ] . ka [keɪ] . kay [keɪ] .
ae [eɪ .
nti [nti] .

VC:
ael [eɪl] . ayl [eɪl] .
it [ɪt] . il [ɪl] . ic [is] . is [is] . in [ɪn] .
en [en] . ent [ent] . el [el] .
an [æn] . al [æl] . av [æv] .
ia [i.ɑ] . ian [i.ɑn] .
as [ɑs] . ar [ɑr] .
ul [ʌl] . us [ʌs] .

(reduce the number of pronounciations of <a> ?)

Link to a chart of some of the changes to the conscript over fictional time...subject to change... https://www.deviantart.com/rodlox/art/Chart2-859339899
...
The image of that chart...if i remember how to do this after so long:

[Richard W]

The best parallel I can think of is Egyptian hieroglyphics. Normally, as one proceeds in reading order, one encounters the front of an object before its rear. However, with animate objects a pair of such hieroglyphs will be written facing one another - one of the symbols is reversed. There is also honorific transposition, by which the name of a god (or the word for a god) is written before the rest of the word - this is especially common in names. However, there is no reversal specifically for cartouches.

Indic scripts can write the vowel above, below, after or before the preceding consonant. The Tai scripts among them have more graphically simple vowels written before the consonant (typically 5) than after (typically one or two). The Tai languages are fundamentally monosyllabic, though loanwords may significantly hide this pattern, and there are many compound words. Thus to those of used to treating vowel symbol as letters, many Tai words appear to be written backwards. I have seen people leave spaces for the preceding vowels and then write them in, but manual and Thai typing equipment dictates that one type the preceding vowel first. For common words, it is not difficult to type in graphic order as opposed to phonetic order.

[keenir]

after too long a pause, I finally finished making the IPA chart of everything I found in the characters' names:



What do you suggest I do next, now that I have gotten this far (with your help I am grateful for)

[bradrn]

after too long a pause, I finally finished making the IPA chart of everything I found in the characters' names:

…

What do you suggest I do next, now that I have gotten this far (with your help I am grateful for)

One option would be to figure out the essentials of how the script would work (script type, writing direction etc.), then work on the shapes of each grapheme. But it’s up to you, really — there isn’t any one ‘correct’ approach.

[keenir]

finally settled on right-to-left for script direction, no exceptions for anything. (also, there is only one number word: 1/2 and thats it)

Planning to re-order things so its more TVO like American Sign Language (topic-verb-object)

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.
.
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and here are some numerals which may get folded into this, or may remain separate:

[keenir]

Here is my first draft at a self-assigned challenge: to craft an abjad for Korean...

My thought is to have the (matres lectiones) for the vowels sit under the (matres lectiones) that tells which fortis-or-otherwise consonant is being disambiguated...yes, inspired by the syllable system in featural Korean script.

Later drafts will handle things such as vowels and, with time, the other consonants of the rest of the Koreanic Family...and from there, using it for a Koreanic conlang {notes for that do exist at the present time}

[keenir]

Here is my first draft at a self-assigned challenge: to craft an abjad for Korean...
My thought is to have the (matres lectiones) for the vowels sit under the (matres lectiones) that tells which fortis-or-otherwise consonant is being disambiguated...yes, inspired by the syllable system in featural Korean script.

Later drafts will handle things such as vowels and, with time, the other consonants of the rest of the Koreanic Family...and from there, using it for a Koreanic conlang {notes for that do exist at the present time}

And now I have added the vowels:

[bradrn]

I’m confused. Isn’t the defining attribute of an abjad that it doesn’t have mandatory vowels?

Also, I’m not convinced an abjad would work well for Korean as anything other than an intellectual exercise. Remember, abjads were a reasonable choice for Semitic languages precisely because Semitic languages are based around consonantal skeletons. Korean is quite different in this regard — vowels carry a much higher functional load.

[keenir]

I’m confused. Isn’t the defining attribute of an abjad that it doesn’t have mandatory vowels?

and the vowels aren't mandatory...but a lot of abjads can show what the vowels are...and given the load Korean vowels need to carry, a pure consonant-only abjad would not work so well.

{also, i had the feeling that one of the first replies would be that i need to add a way to show vowels because of that load)

Also, I’m not convinced an abjad would work well for Korean as anything other than an intellectual exercise.

*nods* which is all it is.

[Travis B.]

I’m confused. Isn’t the defining attribute of an abjad that it doesn’t have mandatory vowels?

Also, I’m not convinced an abjad would work well for Korean as anything other than an intellectual exercise. Remember, abjads were a reasonable choice for Semitic languages precisely because Semitic languages are based around consonantal skeletons. Korean is quite different in this regard — vowels carry a much higher functional load.

It should be remembered, though, that abjads were adopted for Semitic languages not because of that but because the original Semitic abjad was based off of Egyptian writing, using the rebus principle, and it just happened that Egyptian writing was consonantal in practice.

[bradrn]

I’m confused. Isn’t the defining attribute of an abjad that it doesn’t have mandatory vowels?

Also, I’m not convinced an abjad would work well for Korean as anything other than an intellectual exercise. Remember, abjads were a reasonable choice for Semitic languages precisely because Semitic languages are based around consonantal skeletons. Korean is quite different in this regard — vowels carry a much higher functional load.

It should be remembered, though, that abjads were adopted for Semitic languages not because of that but because the original Semitic abjad was based off of Egyptian writing, using the rebus principle, and it just happened that Egyptian writing was consonantal in practice.

Well, yes, that too. But then there’s the fact that Egyptian is a close relative of Semitic, and their morphology is comparable…

[keenir]

I’m confused. Isn’t the defining attribute of an abjad that it doesn’t have mandatory vowels?
Also, I’m not convinced an abjad would work well for Korean as anything other than an intellectual exercise. Remember, abjads were a reasonable choice for Semitic languages precisely because Semitic languages are based around consonantal skeletons. Korean is quite different in this regard — vowels carry a much higher functional load.

When I replied initially, I was pretty sure I knew what you meant by that; but since then, doubt has crept into my brain and taken over...so, in case I misunderstood your meaning, what do you mean by "carry a much higher functional load"?

Thank you

[bradrn]

I’m confused. Isn’t the defining attribute of an abjad that it doesn’t have mandatory vowels?
Also, I’m not convinced an abjad would work well for Korean as anything other than an intellectual exercise. Remember, abjads were a reasonable choice for Semitic languages precisely because Semitic languages are based around consonantal skeletons. Korean is quite different in this regard — vowels carry a much higher functional load.

When I replied initially, I was pretty sure I knew what you meant by that; but since then, doubt has crept into my brain and taken over...so, in case I misunderstood your meaning, what do you mean by "carry a much higher functional load"?

In Semitic languages, the vowels are more or less incidental to the meaning of the word: they’re very important grammatically, but in terms of distinguishing the roots themselves, they aren’t all that important. By contrast, in a language without consonantal roots, such as Korean — or English, since I’m unfamiliar with Korean — vowels play a hugely important role in distinguishing words such as pen and pin and pun and pan, or cat and kit and cut and cot, or has and his and he’s and whose.