#Sherman's Circular

[linguistwho]

So apparently there's an official Gallifreyan translator now.

On the one hand, I'm really excited that Sherman's Circular is becoming more and more canon. On the other hand, it feels weird that such major part of the fandom is now being kinda... corporatized. But this blog isn't for my opinions and I don't want to influence yours. All I will say with conviction is that I really hope they credit the original creator.

However, for those who want some more info, I did a comparison between the new "official" translator, the old translator that most people just getting into Gallifreyan probably used, and my own style.

The first image in black is the old translator, the second in yellow on blue is the new one, and the third in blue is my style from two years ago, and all of them say "Never Give Up, Never Give In". (Though only mine includes punctuation). The first and biggest difference between the computer-translated ones and mine is that mine has the various words interlocked. This is something that anyone can do when they write the Gallifreyan on their own, little practice required, but it cannot be done by the computer translators. They only ever put the words in fixed, equidistant positions. Another major difference is the curve of the connecting lines -- this is another thing that neither translator will do for you. The old translator does allow you to curve the lines yourself, but is very finicky about it. The dots are worth noting as well -- in both translators, they are quite small, while I make them big and pretty separated, for ease of reading. In other words, in terms of style and readability, these computer translators will never replace those created manually.

However, there are clear benefits to the translators. They are extremely helpful for those who are just getting into Gallifreyan and want to double-check their work. So long as you remember that what really matters for readability -- the shapes and positions of the circles and the number of lines and dots -- the rest is just stylistic flourishes. And both allow you to download the Gallifreyan as a .svg so that you can edit it in Inkscape or Illustrator or whatever vector editing software you prefer. As for the comparison between the two translators, the new one has more color customization, and will probably better match how Gallifreyan appears on-screen (though I find it interesting that the Gallifreyan on the new Sonic has the starting point of each word be at the furthest point from the center of the circle, while this translator has them at the usual bottom), but the old one allows for more in-engine editing, and as the lines actually connect to somewhere and the dots are slightly larger, it is easier to read.

TL,DR: Manually-made Gallifreyan still allows for far more stylization and is generally the most easily readable, but both translating websites can be useful, especially as both can be downloaded as editable .svg files. The old one is more readable and has in-engine editing capabilities, but the new one allows for color customization and may be more accurate to what is seen on-screen. And Sherman needs to be credited for its creation.

[vivvision]

"Love, in all its forms, is the most powerful weapon we have. Because love is a form of hope. And like hope, love abides. In the face of everything" - the 13th Doctor, Demons of the Punjab

Support/commission me on Ko-fi!

[factual-entropy]

So one of my friends told me I should try doing Hatchetfield-related Circular Gallifreyan again (for people who don't know, it's a completely readable circle-based cipher created by the Doctor Who fandom for artistic purposes), suggested that I could hide it in a labyrinth-adjacent pattern, and my brain went to "what if Circular Gallifreyan... but squares".

I don't know how I came up with this stock-image-laden monstrosity. In hindsight, it's the second-largest Gallifreyan piece I've ever made (7 words, 28 characters).

Quote is "we just want what you cherish most".

[justgallifreyanthings]

romance author kj charles has me in a chokehold!!! i just reread band sinister, which is such a comfort read btw, and i can't stop thinking about when guy says he'll "get better" from being in love with philip, and how "we get better" is the root of sooooo much miscommunication and gay panic in the book. and then no one ever gets better and instead everyone gets a happy ending and they all ride off holding hands towards london amen. c:

...anyway.

it was fun to experiment with effects to get a more vintage-y handwritten look for this one! i liked the idea of guy jotting this down on the back of a letter or a page from one of amanda's manuscripts, as a reminder to himself.

lmk what you want to see next from me! and as always, if you enjoy my work, please consider supporting me via ko-fi or etsy :)

[gabe-dasha]

Promised Gallifreyan with numbers bc I'm sitting in a lecture and my brain needed to fidget

This is the first verse of Eurus's song from TFP:

"I that am lost, oh who will find me

Deep down below the old beech tree

Help succour me now the east winds blow

16 by 6, brother, and under we go"

[tardis-technician]

Been creating some pride stickers in Sherman's Gallifreyan

(click for better quality)

[phoenixfromgallifrey]

Hello, have you figured out how to do numbers in Circular Gallifreyan yet? That's the last thing I need to figure out, I tried and I really don't get it

Also hope you're having a nice day : )

Hi!

Unfortunately not yet. I'm fairly new to Circular Gallifreyan. I'm not too focused on numbers, cuz I mostly just write out words.

There's a really good guide on Circular Gallifreyan Numbers that I have linked. I'll reanswer this question when I figure out numbers.

I hope you're having a good day too!

[mel-mcz]

Sketch of a sentence in Circular Gallifreyan I made a few years ago (can anyone guess what it says? – it's a very well known phrase and the tags may clue you...).

[circlesilluminated]

Darling, I shall certainly endeavour to try.

Black Doves continues to live in my head rent free. I've been wanting to do some shorter quotes rather than throwing myself into long haul projects, and this was a fun one to start with. I say shorter as if I didn't finish this at 3am...

[theprecuresystem]

The Precure System's Gallifreyan Commissions!

Given some events recently, we wish to open these commissions again! We do not DM people who reply in the notes, if you wish to commission us, DM us first. The details provided have been added as an image description as well as provided on the image with some examples of how the pieces look.

Please consider us for Gallifreyan translations.

[linguistwho]

Commission Details:

For Sherman's Circular Gallifreyan and Gallifriyt, each word costs $1. The first color is free, the second color is $10, and any additional colors after that are $5 each. Adding a gradient is $10, a solid background is $5, and image backgrounds and further customizations are priced on request. All backgrounds can be a solid shape behind the Gallifreyan, or just fill the words themselves.

For The Linguist's Phonetic Gallifreyan, each word costs $1. The first color is free and any additional colors after that are $5 each. Adding a gradient is $10, a solid background is $5, and image backgrounds and further customizations are priced on request. All backgrounds can be a solid shape behind the Gallifreyan, or just fill the words themselves.

For Doctor's Cot Gallifreyan, each word costs $2. The first color is free and any additional colors after that are $5 each. Adding a gradient is $10, a solid background is $5, and image backgrounds and further customizations are priced on request. All backgrounds can be a solid shape behind the Gallifreyan, or just fill the words themselves.

All commissions should be purchased through https://ko-fi.com/linguistwho/commissions, but you can message me directly with specialized orders or questions.

[filipinojalapeno]

"i want to kill elon musk" in shermans gallifreyan by meeeee :3 requested by a friend

[vivvision]

Although it doesn’t seem accurate or translatable… that’s definitely Sherman’s circular gallifreyan on the sonic. Everyone who learned a fictional and fanmade language in middle school… on a scale of one to ten how much are you freaking out?

[justgallifreyanthings]

Sorry if this is random but I saw this and thought of you. The BBC/doctor who website just posted an official gallifreyan translator which looks to be Sherman’s gallifreyan. I know you had opinions about them using Sherman’s gallifreyan on the doctors screwdriver because the bbc didn’t make it or credit the person who made it. Do you have thoughts about the translator?

*gestures vaguely toward my blog* haha yeah

this has, in fact, been driving me loudly insane the entire day! tl;dr i think it's basically plagiarism and it makes me really really mad. what follows is an extended rant, and i apologize in advance about that!

in case anyone else has not been keeping up with this, the Doctor Who team released an "official gallifreyan translator" today, the output of which bears a strong resemblance to Sherman's Circular Gallifreyan, the fanmade system created by Loren Sherman (he/they) in 2011 and developed over the years by them, Annie "Skribe of Sirkles", and the general gallifreyan fan community.

the DWlator does not follow the Sherman's Circular ruleset exactly, but it has clearly taken inspiration from Sherman's Circular, as it uses the same basic structure for creating words and sentences, and the letters use the same stem/decorator system. despite this, Loren is still not credited anywhere on the translator site, nor has the DW team mentioned them in any of their social media posts.

it's an unbelievably shitty, lazy, disingenuous thing for the DW team to do. they really couldn't come up with their own gallifreyan system? they had to stoop to stealing a fan's creation, without even reaching out for permission or acknowledgement? i'm absolutely certain the DW team is going to profit off of their DWlator system; Loren will not see a penny of that, even though it's THEIR system being used, their contribution to the community being exploited.

and if the DW team wanted to put out a translator, there are so many translators that already exist! the GTH does basically exactly what the DWlator does, right down to the way dots and lines are displayed - why not try to strike a deal with the creator of the GTH? why not work with the community, instead of exploiting our work and then ignoring us?

Loren and Skribe of Sirkles are unwilling to seek legal recourse about this: Loren because their goal has never been to have sole ownership of the system, and Skribe of Sirkles because being a gallifreyan artist is her full-time job and she doesn't want to jeopardize her career. i understand their perspectives, and i'm certainly not a big enough player on the field to have a say that means much, but as someone who has been in fandom spaces for decades, i am TERRIFIED of the legal precedent being set here.

i know a lot of folks in the discord server are not quite as "doom and gloom" as i am. Skribe of Sirkles, for instance, is reaching out to the BBC to say "we're excited you're using the system, and we would love to work with you as an offering of goodwill." but i'm not ready to go that far. to me, this is just another, more egregious expansion of the BBC's long history of stealing fan content.

as a corollary, i'm also quite worried that the differences between Sherman's Circular and the DWlator system mean that a lot of fans who've gotten tattoos in Sherman's Circular are going to look at the DWlator output and say "wait a second. my tattoo doesn't look like this. what the hell? did i get ripped off?" loads of people on twitter are already going "but i got the fan system tattooed, and now it doesn't mean anything :("

in fact, the DWlator is not backwards compatible with any other "Gallifreyan" DW has ever put out in the past - including Ncuti's sonic screwdriver lmfao. so even by THEIR OWN RULESET, Ncuti's screwdriver is illegible. absolutely comical.

[gabe-dasha]

Guys, you know you're too far gone when it's raining, you look at a puddle and your brain automatically switches to Gallifreyan...

[regicidal-defenestration]

What I love most about Circular Gallifreyan is how utterly impractical it would be to use in everyday writing. There's a reason all these writing systems we have on Earth tend to stick to going in straight lines