Zompist Bboard Again

I think I finally did it.
Cuneiform: Vertical, then two increments of thirty degrees in either direction. Read lower left to upper right (usually canted thirty/one hundred fifty degrees, depending on how you count, relative to horizontal).

The first ten signs in the CT logosyllabic canon of the mode of Lemhár:


Syllable KA


Syllable KI


Syllable KU


Syllable HA


Syllable HI


Syllable HU


Syllable ḪA


Syllable ḪI


Syllable ḪU


Syllable SA

So I've digitized up to the first 52 signs in the canon (sign 052 is the endonym 'Tim Ar'). Here's how the name of the language looks:


ĜA-RI GEN Tim.Ar
019 – 017 – 039 – 052
Ĝare n Tim Ar

The phonetic piece of the canon works in that you have glyphs of type CA, CI, CU, as well as the bare vowel glyphs A, I, U, Ü (this last is a special case, q.v.). I and U cover E and O as well, and vowels can be any tone. (The defect within the system is, out-of-world, intentional.) The Ü-modifier turns a U into a Ü or Ö, or an I into an Ï or Ë; it does not occur following A-glyphs. Codas are indicated with a repeated vowel (tim 'eternal' would thus be spelt TI-MI); vowel sequences are spelt with an added bare vowel glyph (timi 'yellow plant sp.' is spelt TI-MI-I, and time 'heel' is also TI-MI-I). Basically, if a vowel glyph is the even-numbered member of a sequence of like vowels, it is dropped; e.g. TI-MI-SI > timsi, &c. whereas TI-I-MI-SI > timis, &c.

The way the canon is currently organized, there are one hundred seventy symbols that fit into eleven categories:
- Phonetic (001 – 037) – These are your garden-variety V or CV signs.
- Grammatical (038 – 039, 054 – 056) – Encode certain frequent grammatical functions such as negatives, genitives, and pronouns.
- Numeric (040 – 051, 131 – 132) – Describe numbers.
- Ethnic (052, 104 – 113) – Dedicated entries for race/ethnicity and varna/caste. (There are too many jatis/guilds for them to have their own symbols.)
- Chronological (056 – 060, 133 – 160) – Various sorts of time words, including units thereof and the names of the fortnights—but, strangely enough, not of the seasons. (One absent exception: The time-unit ḫu is just written using sign 009 ḪU.)
- Criminal (061 – 066) – Dedicated signs for the Six Great Thefts (murder, treason, sexual assault, kidnapping, elder abuse, conversion of property).
- Metaphysical (067 – 069) – Three signs for the concepts of god, antigod, and demon.
- Measure word (070 – 103) – The measure-words have their own unique glyphs.
- Sophont (114 – 117) – A few generic/bleached words for ordinary people (man, woman, child, and person).
- Geographic (118 – 130) – Includes directionals, the names of the imperial viceroyalties and special administrative zones, and the names of the two major rival superpowers, all of which have specific glyphs.
- Celestial (131 – 170) – The major celestial bodies within the Írözian system have their own symbols. This covers both stars, all planets, and the two moons of Íröz.

Same thing, but in the second mode. The previous mode, with no horizontals, is the eaksi n Lemhár (Levárian mode); this is eaksi n Atki (Atskian mode).

That is also nice.

Incidentally, the orthography seems to be defective, the language having vowels that seem to be represented as what is Romanised as < i ï e ë a ö (o?) u ü > , which I assume are something like /i ɨ e ə a ø (o?) u y/; I'm curious as to why so many sounds seem to be written with so few characters (and also why sequences like < a > + < i >, or < a > + < w > are not used for what I assume would be phonemes /e o/, and likewise some other digraph for what I presume is /ø/). I suppose the system might be either simply out of date, or imported.

Incidentally, I like how the doubled vowel functions to indicate that a fully realised vowel is present (I did something similar with Kana spellings in Ineshîmé — 年「どうし」[d̪ó̞ᵝːʃː~d̪ó̞ᵝː.ʃə̀] "calendar year", but 利しい「どうしい」[d̪ó̞ᵝ.ɕì] "sharp, quick, cutting"), and it seems to be a very sensible approach if one wishes to avoid lots of diacritics.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pmThat is also nice.

Thank you!

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pmIncidentally, the orthography seems to be defective, the language having vowels that seem to be represented as what is Romanised as < i ï e ë a ö (o?) u ü > , which I assume are something like /i ɨ e ə a ø (o?) u y/

That's pretty close. The paradigm I usually use describes it as /a e ø i y ɤ o ɯ u/ + tone, indicated by a circumflex if the low-tone vowel has an umlaut and an acute otherwise, and the non-front unrounded vowels very well might be describable as central (the daughterlangs so treated them often enough).

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pmI'm curious as to why so many sounds seem to be written with so few characters. . . .I suppose the system might be either simply out of date, or imported.

Yes. This is actually, ultimately, a development of Monumental Khaya hieroglyphs. The syllabograms are descendants of the phonetic complements thereof, and then Tim Ar scribes started plugging their own holes in the system. The biggest problem, for our purposes, is that Classical Khaya had exactly three vowels /u a i/ and further made no tonal distinctions. The consonant systems between the two are also incredibly different; CK is practically the worst possible source the Tim Ar could have developed a script from. (Incidentally, they were well on their way to having a significant corpus of their own when those pesky Kyaha invaded and subjugated them.)

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pm(and [I'm] also [curious] why sequences like < a > + < i >, or < a > + < w > are not used for what I assume would be phonemes /e o/, and likewise some other digraph for what I presume is /ø/)

The two main reasons for this are that a) CT is absolutely lousy with hiatus (the word for 'vowel' is uái, which is trisyllabic in the original) and b) CT has no semivowels, the closest it gets thereto being /ʕ/. Though, admittedly, you do give me some ideas here, as Tim Ar often uses tone to indicate where stress falls in loanwords; frequently, loans with diphthongs borrow the diphthong as two full vowels, but the nucleus is borrowed with high tone.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pmIncidentally, I like how the doubled vowel functions to indicate that a fully realised vowel is present (I did something similar with Kana spellings in Ineshîmé — 年「どうし」[d̪ó̞ᵝːʃː~d̪ó̞ᵝː.ʃə̀] "calendar year", but 利しい「どうしい」[d̪ó̞ᵝ.ɕì] "sharp, quick, cutting"), and it seems to be a very sensible approach if one wishes to avoid lots of diacritics.

Thank you again! That's something I sporked from the stuff I've read clawgrip and zompist relate vis-à-vis writing systems.

Speaking of tone and scripts, I'm debating whether or not to have a tone marker called an éniu ('spike') get developed somehow.

Man in Space wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:50 am

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pmIncidentally, the orthography seems to be defective, the language having vowels that seem to be represented as what is Romanised as < i ï e ë a ö (o?) u ü > , which I assume are something like /i ɨ e ə a ø (o?) u y/

That's pretty close. The paradigm I usually use describes it as /a e ø i y ɤ o ɯ u/ + tone, indicated by a circumflex if the low-tone vowel has an umlaut and an acute otherwise, and the non-front unrounded vowels very well might be describable as central (the daughterlangs so treated them often enough).

I presume < ë ï ö ü > are [ɤ ɯ ø y], then?

Man in Space wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:50 am

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pmI'm curious as to why so many sounds seem to be written with so few characters. . . .I suppose the system might be either simply out of date, or imported.

Yes. This is actually, ultimately, a development of Monumental Khaya hieroglyphs. The syllabograms are descendants of the phonetic complements thereof, and then Tim Ar scribes started plugging their own holes in the system. The biggest problem, for our purposes, is that Classical Khaya had exactly three vowels /u a i/ and further made no tonal distinctions. The consonant systems between the two are also incredibly different; CK is practically the worst possible source the Tim Ar could have developed a script from. (Incidentally, they were well on their way to having a significant corpus of their own when those pesky Kyaha invaded and subjugated them.)

Adapting terrible orthographies can be great fun. Also, I assume "Kyaha" is a typographical error? Either way, does that mean they had an earlier script? If so, I'm surprised they don't borrow vowel signs for /e o/ from it if they existed. Old English kept a few Runic characters lying around, after all.

Man in Space wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:50 am

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pm(and [I'm] also [curious] why sequences like < a > + < i >, or < a > + < w > are not used for what I assume would be phonemes /e o/, and likewise some other digraph for what I presume is /ø/)

The two main reasons for this are that a) CT is absolutely lousy with hiatus (the word for 'vowel' is uái, which is trisyllabic in the original) and b) CT has no semivowels, the closest it gets thereto being /ʕ/. Though, admittedly, you do give me some ideas here, as Tim Ar often uses tone to indicate where stress falls in loanwords; frequently, loans with diphthongs borrow the diphthong as two full vowels, but the nucleus is borrowed with high tone.

You could also use the umlaut-marker on "a" followed by "i" or "u" to indicate "e" or "o", perhaps?

Edit: Or different marks on the "a" character, producing something roughly equivalent to < ä > for /e/, and < å > for "o" (in other words, giving vowels either a "fronting/raising" or "backing-lowering" diacritic).

Man in Space wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:50 am

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pmIncidentally, I like how the doubled vowel functions to indicate that a fully realised vowel is present (I did something similar with Kana spellings in Ineshîmé — 年「どうし」[d̪ó̞ᵝːʃː~d̪ó̞ᵝː.ʃə̀] "calendar year", but 利しい「どうしい」[d̪ó̞ᵝ.ɕì] "sharp, quick, cutting"), and it seems to be a very sensible approach if one wishes to avoid lots of diacritics.

Thank you again! That's something I sporked from the stuff I've read clawgrip and zompist relate vis-à-vis writing systems.

Speaking of tone and scripts, I'm debating whether or not to have a tone marker called an éniu ('spike') get developed somehow.

Japanese gets on quite well without marking it, but Kana are a much more heavily defective system of writing compared with some of the things I've encountered Japanese doing phonologically. Writing words in Kanji helps them to differentiate what would otherwise be homographs (though homophony is pretty common in Sino-Japanese vocabulary), of course.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:01 am

Man in Space wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:50 am

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pmIncidentally, the orthography seems to be defective, the language having vowels that seem to be represented as what is Romanised as < i ï e ë a ö (o?) u ü > , which I assume are something like /i ɨ e ə a ø (o?) u y/

That's pretty close. The paradigm I usually use describes it as /a e ø i y ɤ o ɯ u/ + tone, indicated by a circumflex if the low-tone vowel has an umlaut and an acute otherwise, and the non-front unrounded vowels very well might be describable as central (the daughterlangs so treated them often enough).

I presume < ë ï ö ü > are [ɤ ɯ ø y], then?

Indeed. And < ê î ô û > are the high-tone counterparts.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:01 amAlso, I assume "Kyaha" is a typographical error?

Correct.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:01 amEither way, does that mean they had an earlier script? If so, I'm surprised they don't borrow vowel signs for /e o/ from it if they existed. Old English kept a few Runic characters lying around, after all.

I was about to object that their earlier script was almost as opposite as you could get from it with a 2-D writing system, color being a meaningful component of that logosyllabary, but then I realized that Khaya hieroglyphs vs. Tim Ar–O logograms are really a matter of the former looking more stylized/decorated and being monochrome. That's basically it.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:01 am

Man in Space wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:50 am

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pm(and [I'm] also [curious] why sequences like < a > + < i >, or < a > + < w > are not used for what I assume would be phonemes /e o/, and likewise some other digraph for what I presume is /ø/)

The two main reasons for this are that a) CT is absolutely lousy with hiatus (the word for 'vowel' is uái, which is trisyllabic in the original) and b) CT has no semivowels, the closest it gets thereto being /ʕ/. Though, admittedly, you do give me some ideas here, as Tim Ar often uses tone to indicate where stress falls in loanwords; frequently, loans with diphthongs borrow the diphthong as two full vowels, but the nucleus is borrowed with high tone.

You could also use the umlaut-marker on "a" followed by "i" or "u" to indicate "e" or "o", perhaps?

Edit: Or different marks on the "a" character, producing something roughly equivalent to < ä > for /e/, and < å > for "o" (in other words, giving vowels either a "fronting/raising" or "backing-lowering" diacritic).

This has been on my mind the past couple of days. Maybe the following might work as a later development (possibly as an empire-internal "modernization" of the ancient script); the only really common double-vowel sequences are /a.a/:

- CU + U = CO
- CU + Ü = CÜ
- CI + I = CE
- CI + Ü = CÏ
- CA + Ü = CË

Doubling a vowel lowers it; using the Ü-glyph umlauts it. The final kludge in the list is actually really consistent with in-universe details because CT /a/ had a frontal allophone [æ] in some situations, so "umlauting" it could be taken to mean backing in its case. lolno, I have realized my scheme won't work because double letters are used to disambiguate codas. Ugh. Might just do U + Ü = Ü/Ö, I + Ü = Ï/Ë, A + Ü = E.

CU /u, o/
CU-CU /CuC, CoC/
CU-CU-U /CuCo, CoCo, CoCu/
CU-CU-CU /CuCCu/
CU-CU-U-CU /CuCuCu/
CU-U-CU-U /CuCu/
CU-Ü /Cy, Cø/
CU-Ü-CU-Ü /CyC, CøC/
CU-CU-Ü /CuCy, CuCü/
vel. sim. with CI
CA /Ca/
CA-Ü /Ce/
CA-CA-Ü /CaCe/
CA-Ü-CA-Ü /CeCe/

So CT's name would become written < ĜA-RA-Ü GEN Tim.Ar >. I can accept that.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pmJapanese gets on quite well without marking it [tone/pitch/accent], but Kana are a much more heavily defective system of writing compared with some of the things I've encountered Japanese doing phonologically. Writing words in Kanji helps them to differentiate what would otherwise be homographs (though homophony is pretty common in Sino-Japanese vocabulary), of course.

Sounds good—thanks for the information! That actually gives me some ideas on how some descendant scripts might shape up. Just imagine a Tim Ar script based on phonetic components from CT, but with semantic complements from Caber…

Man in Space wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:50 am

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pm(and [I'm] also [curious] why sequences like < a > + < i >, or < a > + < w > are not used for what I assume would be phonemes /e o/, and likewise some other digraph for what I presume is /ø/)

Man in Space wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:50 am The two main reasons for this are that a) CT is absolutely lousy with hiatus (the word for 'vowel' is uái, which is trisyllabic in the original) and b) CT has no semivowels, the closest it gets thereto being /ʕ/. Though, admittedly, you do give me some ideas here, as Tim Ar often uses tone to indicate where stress falls in loanwords; frequently, loans with diphthongs borrow the diphthong as two full vowels, but the nucleus is borrowed with high tone.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pm
You could also use the umlaut-marker on "a" followed by "i" or "u" to indicate "e" or "o", perhaps?

Edit: Or different marks on the "a" character, producing something roughly equivalent to < ä > for /e/, and < å > for "o" (in other words, giving vowels either a "fronting/raising" or "backing-lowering" diacritic).

This has been on my mind the past couple of days. Maybe the following might work as a later development (possibly as an empire-internal "modernization" of the ancient script); the only really common double-vowel sequences are /a.a/:

- CU + U = CO
- CU + Ü = CÜ
- CI + I = CE
- CI + Ü = CÏ
- CA + Ü = CË

Doubling a vowel lowers it; using the Ü-glyph umlauts it. The final kludge in the list is actually really consistent with in-universe details because CT /a/ had a frontal allophone [æ] in some situations, so "umlauting" it could be taken to mean backing in its case.

So CT's name would become written < ĜA-RI-I GEN Tim.Ar >. I can accept that.

I'm not sure I totally follow the logic here; certainly CI+I and CU+U are already used to note pronounced vowels when they would otherwise be expected to represent terminal consonants? How will this be addressed?

(This is also quite a quote snarl.)

Man in Space wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 9:49 pm

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pmJapanese gets on quite well without marking it [tone/pitch/accent], but Kana are a much more heavily defective system of writing compared with some of the things I've encountered Japanese doing phonologically. Writing words in Kanji helps them to differentiate what would otherwise be homographs (though homophony is pretty common in Sino-Japanese vocabulary), of course.

Sounds good—thanks for the information! That actually gives me some ideas on how some descendant scripts might shape up. Just imagine a Tim Ar script based on phonetic components from CT, but with semantic complements from Caber…

I haven't the slightest idea what that would look like. I don't think I have it in me to actually invent and digitise a script — not when I have so many Han characters and Kana at my disposal (and don't be afraid to be creative with what you already have — Ineshîmé writes the l-series as や゙ (le~la) ゆ゙ (lu) 𛀁゙ (li~le~l) よ゙ (lo), and terminal -l sometimes also as い゙, which is etymological, /j/ > /l/ tended to occur before low-pitched vowels; loan-phonemes and sequences can be pretty fun, if sometimes difficult, to work with, too — and Greek took some consonants it didn't need in the Alphabet that was brought to it, essentially saying "I like vowels, so these are vowels now"), so I'm pretty impressed whenever anybody does.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:16 pm

Man in Space wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:50 am

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pm(and [I'm] also [curious] why sequences like < a > + < i >, or < a > + < w > are not used for what I assume would be phonemes /e o/, and likewise some other digraph for what I presume is /ø/)

Man in Space wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:50 am The two main reasons for this are that a) CT is absolutely lousy with hiatus (the word for 'vowel' is uái, which is trisyllabic in the original) and b) CT has no semivowels, the closest it gets thereto being /ʕ/. Though, admittedly, you do give me some ideas here, as Tim Ar often uses tone to indicate where stress falls in loanwords; frequently, loans with diphthongs borrow the diphthong as two full vowels, but the nucleus is borrowed with high tone.

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:57 pm
You could also use the umlaut-marker on "a" followed by "i" or "u" to indicate "e" or "o", perhaps?

Edit: Or different marks on the "a" character, producing something roughly equivalent to < ä > for /e/, and < å > for "o" (in other words, giving vowels either a "fronting/raising" or "backing-lowering" diacritic).

This has been on my mind the past couple of days. Maybe the following might work as a later development (possibly as an empire-internal "modernization" of the ancient script); the only really common double-vowel sequences are /a.a/:

- CU + U = CO
- CU + Ü = CÜ
- CI + I = CE
- CI + Ü = CÏ
- CA + Ü = CË

Doubling a vowel lowers it; using the Ü-glyph umlauts it. The final kludge in the list is actually really consistent with in-universe details because CT /a/ had a frontal allophone [æ] in some situations, so "umlauting" it could be taken to mean backing in its case.

So CT's name would become written < ĜA-RI-I GEN Tim.Ar >. I can accept that.

I'm not sure I totally follow the logic here; certainly CI+I and CU+U are already used to note pronounced vowels when they would otherwise be expected to represent terminal consonants? How will this be addressed?

I realized that like thirty seconds after I posted it and edited it while you were composing yours.

Man in Space wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:17 pm I realized that like thirty seconds after I posted it and edited it while you were composing yours.

On the subject of the ambiguity, it occurs to me that you could keep much closer to your original idea if every second vowel is suppressed regardless of
whether or not it matches the one that precedes, but that it has some influence on the preceding vowel:

Ci + Ca = CeC
Cu + Ca = CoC
Cï + Ca = CëC
Cü + Ca = CöC

Or if the second vowel in a sequence is treated as a digraph unless some element is doubled:

Ci + a = Ce
Ci + i + a = Ci-a
Cï + a = Cë
Ci + ï + a = Ci-ë
Cï + i + a - Cï-e
Cï + ï + a = Cï-ë
Cu + a = Co
CU + u + a = Cu-a
Cü + a = Cö

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:47 pmOn the subject of the ambiguity, it occurs to me that you could keep much closer to your original idea if every second vowel is suppressed regardless of whether or not it matches the one that precedes, but that it has some influence on the preceding vowel:

Ci + Ca = CeC
Cu + Ca = CoC
Cï + Ca = CëC
Cü + Ca = CöC

Old way:
This way:

Strictly phonetically (i.e. no logograms):

LA-GA-HA-A ĜA-RA A-U-Ü-RU LA-GA-HA-A GA-I-NA-RA
Laghá ĝár, ör laghá genr
'Trust, but verify'

…now I have justification for all those single symbols and shorthands. Thank you, Rounin Ryuuji; I think you've kind of fixed something in-universe for me.

Im confused .... does this script not allow backwards-facing glyphs? I wouldve thought the old system would make more sense since you could just spell the vowels explicitly ... e.g. ta-it = /tet/, ta-at = /tat/, and so on.are they all read as CV regardless of direction?

Pabappa wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:32 pm Im confused .... does this script not allow backwards-facing glyphs? I wouldve thought the old system would make more sense since you could just spell the vowels explicitly ... e.g. ta-it = /tet/, ta-at = /tat/, and so on.are they all read as CV regardless of direction?

Is there any script at all which allows writing syllabic graphemes backwards?

I don't know of any, but it would be cool if there were one.

Edit: Somehow missed this —

Man in Space wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 8:51 pm …now I have justification for all those single symbols and shorthands. Thank you, Rounin Ryuuji; I think you've kind of fixed something in-universe for me.

Happy to have been of help.

Sort of the "signature" weapon of the Caber is the giǵam, basically what we'd call a bagh nakh crossed with slightly sharpened brass knuckles; frequently there's a foldable blade/needle/spike, the that can be opened out from the bottom bar and used to pierce or stab things. This ended up being borrowed into CT as kitłám (pl. ikłám). One of the units of the imperial army, the Caber Corps (Érehûnime ré Kán), is entirely made of Caber-descended recruits and part of their standard-issue kit is the kitłám. The kitłám is, however, by and large restricted to the Caber Corps insofar as the Tim Ar are concerned, though the Caber themselves use it more widely. In the officially-unofficial-turn-a-blind-eye-to-it infighting amongst the Caber petty kingdoms, it's kind of considered bad form/uncouth/"ungentlemanly"/dishonorable to dispatch a high-ranking noble via any other method. You got two rivals who also hate each other? Poison one of them, shoot them, blow them up, literally anything except the giǵam and, if you've sufficiently covered your tracks, the problem will take care of itself.

Another Caber-originated weapon is the ćucơh—in CC this literally just means 'chain' but this was borrowed into CT as łokêḫ (pl. ołkêḫ) with the specialized meaning 'razor chain' or 'tactical chain'. It's kind of like those jump ropes you used in elementary-school gym class, except the "rope" segments are typically peppered with bits of diamond or sharpened metal instead of plastic.

Just as a matter of procedure, I haven't done too too much thinking about this, but there's a…I guess you could call it "genre"?…of Tim Ar-specific guns that has two grips. Such a gun is called a hïn (pl. ihun); I provisionally translate this 'Zweihander', except as applied to a firearm instead of a scalloped sword.

One. I'm thinking I'm going to go back to ł for /ɬ/ and d for /θ/.

Two: Might make another suzerainty in the Empire: That of the Banner of Uúrutłara (Wurrjarra). Wurrjarra is an oddity as far as the empire goes: It was surrendered Dujajikiswa territory; since the Dujajikiswa are from below the Messerini line, they are one of the few female-dominant regions of the empire. The Ëá ar Té Kas n Uúrutłara, the 'Fighting Women of Wurrjarra', are a clan whose hat is being women who wage war (if you've played Space: 1889, think the Amazons; otherwise, maybe the Night Witches or WASPs, except more general fighters). I may or may not have to revise the cuneiform spelling a bit because otherwise this would be U-U-U-U-RU-RU-LA-A-RA-A (UUUURURULAARAA > UURURLARA [UURUTŁARA]). The perils of adapting a writing system from a nearly-wholly unsuitable donor language…

Three: Adding a free city in Uluhír: Líhsakan (Lissagon). No real reason other than that, as a place name, it's existed for years without much of a grounding. So why not give it to the empire?

This might be a signal to create a semivowelisation marker for "i" and "u".

Rounin Ryuuji wrote: ↑Tue Sep 28, 2021 12:50 amThis might be a signal to create a semivowelisation marker for "i" and "u".

CT doesn't have semivowels, though. The reason the initial /wu-/ got borrowed as /ùú/ is because the accent here mimics what would happen with an onglide into a stressed vowel.

––––––––

A preliminary description of the Tim Ar musical scale:

- Based on P5 equivalence (the repetition interval is the perfect fifth, 701.955 cents or so)
- The chromatic is 18 divisions per fifth, 77.995 cents apiece
- There are three step intervals: The half-step (H), whole step (S), and step-and-a-half (Z)
- A typical diatonic Tim Ar scale would be S-Z-H-S-S-Z-H-S, so there are nine notes per quintave (1-3-6-7-9-11-14-15-17, or ABCDEFGHI).
- A# = Bb, B# ≠ Cb, C# = D and Db = C, D# = Eb, E# = Fb, F# ≠ Gb, G# = H and Hb = G, H# = Ib, and I# = Ab.

I did this because a) I like the Carlos Alpha scale, which has nine quintave divisions; 2) I wanted to include at least one interval of a step and a half but also have a symmetric set of step instructions; and D) I wanted to include the intervals of the major third, neutral third, perfect fourth, and perfect fifth; I've seen it said the latter two are in basically every musical scale ever and the other two just seemed applicable. I'm within like three cents or so of a neutral third (this scale's D) and a just perfect fourth (this scale's G). It's a nine-cent difference with the perfect fourth, but eh. Major third, depending on how you define it in just intonation, I'm within two to eighteen cents (if you're one of those 435 fans, then I'm like 45 cents off. Oops!).

You can also just have the semivowels lost in borrowing. This is common in Japanese transcriptions of foreign words.