Zompist Bboard Again

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Wed Aug 20, 2025 3:52 am I consider English spelling reforms a hopeless cause because the phonology, especially the vowel system, varies between regions, so whatever you do, there will be people who claim that you spell the same sound differently, different sounds the same, or both at the same time, and will thus mark your system off as a failure. Yet, it is a legitimate pursuit to play with alternative spellings of English.

bradrn wrote: ↑Wed Aug 20, 2025 4:54 am

WeepingElf wrote: ↑Wed Aug 20, 2025 3:52 am I consider English spelling reforms a hopeless cause because the phonology, especially the vowel system, varies between regions, so whatever you do, there will be people who claim that you spell the same sound differently, different sounds the same, or both at the same time, and will thus mark your system off as a failure. Yet, it is a legitimate pursuit to play with alternative spellings of English.

Agreed.

In any case, as much as I would love to learn every language that exists and create Angloji characters for every one of their words, I cannot realistically do so. As such, I must resort to providing options to either transliterate them or to write them like the previously mentioned jukujikun, the Japanese practice of taking kanji sequences and assigning them readings that are wholly different from what would be expected from the standard readings of each kanji.

quinterbeck wrote: ↑Sat Aug 23, 2025 6:09 amMy impression is that the approach is very synchronic, as in, developed for English as it exists today. Is that right? It would be interesting to see a diachronic project, e.g. a character set for Old English and then modified for the Old French and Latinate vocabulary as it enters the language. Maybe ending up with a kunyomi/onyomi style system, or something else.

Jukujikun words have long been a fascination of mine, particularly in their usage with names. The unpredictability of Japanese place names and surnames like Hase (長谷) or Shinonome (東雲) is endless, and there is always something new to learn. English names are no less multifarious from their long histories of documented phonetic changes, not to mention the massive number of borrowings from non-English languages. Japanese has a few loanword assignments to phonetically unrelated kanji sequences in a similar vein, such as rakko (海獺, meaning sea otter, from the Ainu word meaning the same) and kudara (百濟, referring to the ancient Korean kingdom of Baekje, from a yet unknown Old Korean term). It is always a fun intellectual exercise to track the origins of proper nouns, and even more exciting to assign Angloji characters to them based on the etymological findings. Here, I demonstrate this with the two aforementioned fighters’ names.

quinterbeck wrote: ↑Sat Aug 23, 2025 6:09 am I will put my opinion in and say I think this is an interesting project! When it comes to board users, I think we like in-depth descriptions of people's projects, and to offer praise, critiques, alternatives etc. So, like others, I'd like to browse the character set, and see explanations of different types of interrelations between characters.

For example, I notice that there are very common english morphemes, such as the plural, and comparative -er, which are written with quite complex characters. How did that come about in your design process? With their high frequency and few phonemes I would expect them to have simple characters with few strokes. Chinese text, as a comparison, often contains characters with fewer strokes alongside those with higher stroke count.

My impression is that the approach is very synchronic, as in, developed for English as it exists today. Is that right? It would be interesting to see a diachronic project, e.g. a character set for Old English and then modified for the Old French and Latinate vocabulary as it enters the language. Maybe ending up with a kunyomi/onyomi style system, or something else.

RyanChangHill wrote: ↑Fri Sep 19, 2025 8:51 am The reason I give everyone for the complexity of the common characters is that I had to do this in order to avoid any existing glyphs, whether as a rare variant Chinese character or as part of any other writing system.

quinterbeck wrote: ↑Wed Sep 24, 2025 12:16 am

RyanChangHill wrote: ↑Fri Sep 19, 2025 8:51 am The reason I give everyone for the complexity of the common characters is that I had to do this in order to avoid any existing glyphs, whether as a rare variant Chinese character or as part of any other writing system.

Why did you have to avoid existing glyphs?

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Sep 24, 2025 9:04 am

Why did you have to avoid existing glyphs?

It should be remembered here that both kanji and hanja specifically share character forms with hanzi, to the point that Han unification could be carried out with (a level of) success.

zompist wrote: ↑Wed Sep 24, 2025 4:20 pm

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Sep 24, 2025 9:04 am

Why did you have to avoid existing glyphs?

It should be remembered here that both kanji and hanja specifically share character forms with hanzi, to the point that Han unification could be carried out with (a level of) success.

However, Tangut does not work this way.

quinterbeck wrote: ↑Wed Sep 24, 2025 12:16 am

RyanChangHill wrote: ↑Fri Sep 19, 2025 8:51 am The reason I give everyone for the complexity of the common characters is that I had to do this in order to avoid any existing glyphs, whether as a rare variant Chinese character or as part of any other writing system.

Why did you have to avoid existing glyphs?

This is just my guess: either to...
a. avoid repeated PMs to the tune of "but you can't make that be the sign for toothpaste, because its the sign for horse!"

b. use it as a design challenge.

RyanChangHill wrote: ↑Fri Sep 26, 2025 7:28 pm

This is just my guess: either to...
a. avoid repeated PMs to the tune of "but you can't make that be the sign for toothpaste, because its the sign for horse!"

b. use it as a design challenge.

Both reasons are true. It was also:

- I wanted to avoid any potential copyright issues, in the small chance that it somehow becomes commercially viable.

keenir wrote: ↑Fri Sep 26, 2025 8:14 pm

RyanChangHill wrote: ↑Fri Sep 26, 2025 7:28 pm

This is just my guess: either to...
a. avoid repeated PMs to the tune of "but you can't make that be the sign for toothpaste, because its the sign for horse!"

b. use it as a design challenge.

Both reasons are true. It was also:

- I wanted to avoid any potential copyright issues, in the small chance that it somehow becomes commercially viable.

I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of the contents of most if not all Siniform scripts are copywritten. Specific combinations, such as in company names, might be legally protected - but thats true of what you'd find in any script's users.

keenir wrote: ↑Fri Sep 26, 2025 2:56 pm

quinterbeck wrote: ↑Wed Sep 24, 2025 12:16 am

RyanChangHill wrote: ↑Fri Sep 19, 2025 8:51 am The reason I give everyone for the complexity of the common characters is that I had to do this in order to avoid any existing glyphs, whether as a rare variant Chinese character or as part of any other writing system.

Why did you have to avoid existing glyphs?

This is just my guess: either to...
a. avoid repeated PMs to the tune of "but you can't make that be the sign for toothpaste, because its the sign for horse!"

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Sep 27, 2025 3:09 am

keenir wrote: ↑Fri Sep 26, 2025 8:14 pm

RyanChangHill wrote: ↑Fri Sep 26, 2025 7:28 pm

Both reasons are true. It was also:

- I wanted to avoid any potential copyright issues, in the small chance that it somehow becomes commercially viable.

I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of the contents of most if not all Siniform scripts aren't copywritten. Specific combinations, such as in company names, might be legally protected - but thats true of what you'd find in any script's users.

Did you forget a ‘not’ in the first sentence?

keenir wrote: ↑Fri Sep 26, 2025 8:14 pm

RyanChangHill wrote: ↑Fri Sep 26, 2025 7:28 pm

This is just my guess: either to...
a. avoid repeated PMs to the tune of "but you can't make that be the sign for toothpaste, because its the sign for horse!"

b. use it as a design challenge.

Both reasons are true. It was also:

- I wanted to avoid any potential copyright issues, in the small chance that it somehow becomes commercially viable.

I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of the contents of most if not all Siniform scripts aren't copywritten. Specific combinations, such as in company names, might be legally protected - but thats true of what you'd find in any script's users.

RyanChangHill wrote: ↑Sat Sep 27, 2025 7:53 pm

keenir wrote: ↑Fri Sep 26, 2025 8:14 pm

RyanChangHill wrote: ↑Fri Sep 26, 2025 7:28 pm

Both reasons are true. It was also:

- I wanted to avoid any potential copyright issues, in the small chance that it somehow becomes commercially viable.

I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of the contents of most if not all Siniform scripts aren't copywritten. Specific combinations, such as in company names, might be legally protected - but thats true of what you'd find in any script's users.

I think sequences of words or characters are not copywritten or copywritable, but perhaps glyphs may be if made for artistic purposes by an individual. Conlang copyright is murky in general. I don't think I would get into trouble if I used any glyph shapes that are too similar to some rare Chinese character variants, but there would be more issues if I did that with a character from Xu Bing's A Book from the Sky.

17 USC § 102(b) wrote:In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.