#linear gallifreyan

[pl9090]

[Personal headcanon] Gallifreyan

Disclaimer: As the title says this is just how I think of and use what I consider to be the main fan created Gallifreyan font/languages. This is not me attempting impose it on everyone else as a definitive organisation just as reference for my work following this to avoid confusion.

Old High Gallifreyan: https://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/666099/archaic_gallifreyan

Modern Linear Gallifreyan: https://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/657463/assassin_s_gallifreyan

Timelord Circular/History coding: (Doctor's Cot) http://doctorscotgallifreyan.com/

Faction Paradox Circular/alt time coding: (Shermans) https://shermansplanet.com/gallifreyan/

Faction Paradox Circular/alt time coding is used by sme renegades as an act of defience hence the Doctor's ocassional onscreen use of it. It's like an Eton alumni, "rebelling" purposely using americanisms in an Austrailian accent. instead of the proper English language in a London accent as taught.

[gotyouanyway]

idk if it means anything but the nonlinear way this text appears on the screen is cool

[doccywhomst]

hello im trying to find your gallifreyan script that isnt circular but i cant for the life of me find it, do you have a link? thanj you!!

yes!!! it’s called modern (or linear) gallifreyan, and the link is in my pinned post! i just added it ♥️

[aniseandspearmint]

THE GIGGLE SPOILERS

okay okay so, there is a Doctor just chilling on earth for the next however long, taking quick jaunts occasionally, but LIVING linear time and everything.

There is an entire regular meeting support group for companions of The Doctor.

That Donna is definitely going to be invited to, right?

Does Donna open with, "Hi my name is Donna Noble and The Doctor is currently living with me 'cause he finally burnt out after a few million years and needed a break. He's recovered enough to be gettin' antsy and a nice local trip or two to see old friends would do him good! Anyone object to me binging him along next week?"

The big question is, would it be rude for 14 to show up?

On the one hand, this is technically a support group for people to talk about their adventures WITH him, in a safe space and all that.

I can't imagine he'd be unwelcome, but would it be too awkward????

OH WAIT NO HILARIOUS THOUGHT.

Donna attends the companion support group.

Donna talks about The Doctor in the present tense a bit, but in such a way that the rest of the group think he's an elderly working dog she's adopted and is rehabbing.

That she named The Doctor because of fond memories with her own Doctor.

And it's just SO clear she's talking about an elderly pet. The tone, the stories....

"Rose has been real helpful gettin' him to be more active. She'll chase him around the yard for a few laps, tossing a ball around!"

"Granddad's been trying to get him to go out and shoot moles with him, but The Doctor doesn't like guns much, you know."

"He's been driving my mum up the wall, sniffin' around the kitchen every time she's cooking. Course, he does it to everyone but mum's nearly stepped on him a few times!"

"My daughter makes lovely stuffed animals *shows pics on her phone*, The Doctor loves them! We find him napping in the yard with one as a pillow all the time. She sells them by the way. Her etsy shop is-"

And then one meeting she's like, "Oh, would you lot mind if I brought the Doctor next week? He's feeling better, I think it'd be nice if he got out of the house for a bit?"

And of course everyone is like, 'oh sure' 'yeah' 'alright' 'no problem'.

And then next week rolls around and-

That is an ENTIRE fully bipedal Gallifreyan Doctor. Huh.

[autumn-doodles]

After I have no idea how long I FINALLY finished transcribing the tensimm speech in EoT into Gallifreyan oh my god-

For the design, i wanted to differentiate dr’s and master’s speech, so I made master’s writing white on black and doc black on white. You may not notice it but I also slightly altered the way I wrote for each of them. The doctor’s speech is full of curved lines and all the dots seen in his speech get larger/smaller in circles, I thought it was a bit more playful like the dr. The master on the other hand has super straight lines and similarly sized dots since master is a lot harsher.

The writing along the outside also reads “End of Time” bc I thought that circle needed something so I just wrote the ep title this speech was from in some weird improvised linear gallifreyan-

And this is how you would read it, each circle is read anti-clockwise from the bottom unless you see the little ‘start here’ symbol: —(•

(If you can be bothered tho lol, I know it’s a bit of an effort)

And now my watermark which I also wrote in gallifreyan for authenticity’s sake

Sadly I can’t post each of the sentences separately but if people are interested I could try sending them in the reblogs!

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

How do siblings work with time lords / Gallifreyans? I know the doctor has an older brother, but how much older? What’s a normal age gap, or the equivalent. Like is four years apart a gallifreyan forty years? And can siblings end up in different chapters at academy?

Also, is there a longer list of gallifreyan roots and / or a dictionary? Trying to futz with names a bit more, I’m trying to make a name that starts with a d with an l and n somewhere, and one that starts with an H and has a lee sound somewhere in there. (It’s a surprise for my sister)

Also also, your work is absolutely amazing. This entire blog is absolutely incredible, it’s totally fantastic. Thank you for everything

How siblings work in Gallifrey is an extremely complicated question, you won't be surprised to hear.

First, if you don't know what Looms are, look here, then come back:

How do siblings work with Gallifreyans?

Each House has its own Loom, and each House is allotted a certain amount of cousins, and legally cannot exceed that quota. Therefore, new cousins can only be loomed when one member of the House has their final death.

Now, Looms have a standard genetic template that aligns with the House's and affiliated Chapter's values and abilities, and it creates random people based on that template. However, you can also feed in the genetics of one or more 'parents' to create a loomling, which also absorbs that standard genetic Loom template alongside the parents. Two loomlings who share genetics from the same person can be considered siblings.

In the case of the Doctor and Brax, it wholly depends on which account of the Doctor's birth you subscribe to, but in the most detailed and least conflicting version, the Doctor and Brax are half-brothers. They have the same father (Ulysses), while the Doctor has a mother (Penelope), and Brax may not even have a proper mother.

📺|🧑‍⚕🧐 Who are the Doctor’s parents?

What is Brax and the Doctor's age difference?

Braxatiel got going around 700-1000 ish years before the Doctor, which in human ageing years is around 9-13 years or so (in linear time, anyway, and disregarding the 18 maturation years). See:

📺|🧬👵Converting Gallifreyan Age to Human Years

What's a normal age gap between Gallifreyan siblings?

Because of the way the Looms work in 'allotted' cousins, there's no such thing as a 'normal' age gap; it's simply about waiting for one of your cousins to die. If they're womb-born, this is more flexible, and the gestation period could be something like a year, so like a year between children is the quickest you could physically do it. See:

💬|🍼👶How do natural Gallifreyan pregnancies work?

💬|🍼👶What would a Human/Gallifreyan pregnancy look like?

Can siblings end up in different chapter academies?

As mentioned above, Looms are pretty standardised for traits, and if a House is affiliated with a certain Chapter, the Loom will produce children with the natural traits of that Chapter. But are a few reasons they could end up in different academies:

Errors in the weft cause a huge divergence of traits;

They're loomed in a House that's affiliated to a different chapter to their sibling;

Their House doesn't have an affiliation (and their Loom is not standardised);

Being womb-born obviously HUGELY changes potential inherent traits, and is an entirely different essay.

For more on Chapter traits, see:

🤔|🏡🧩How do Gallifreyan Houses influence abilities and traits?

❓Which Gallifreyan academy would admit you? (Quiz)

More on language ...

Conlang: The list provided on this post was exhaustive (as of 10/24, may change). However, something to note is that 'i' is pronounced 'ee', and it's completely legitimate to use only the first two letters for any root particle. Here are a few randomers for some inspiration:

Duliakin [doo-leah-keen] (Interact, Natural, Affect)

Dosnelga [dos-nel-ga] (Regeneration, Progress, Stability)

Dukonel [doo-ko-nel] (Interact, Live, Progress)

Dosnilo [dos-nee-low] (Regeneration, Affect, Light

Duliani [doo-leah-nee] (Interact, Natural, Affect)

Holiasha [ho-leah-sha] (Move, Natural, Emotion)

Holigra [ho-leeg-rah] (Move, Learn, Strength)

Hokiosu [ho-keyo-soo] (Move, Affect, Write)

Hoklina [ho-klee-na] (Move, Element, Succeed)

Holiaga [ho-leah-ga] (Move, Natural, Stability)

The updated and revamped dictionary and grammar guide aren't ready for the real world yet. For anyone particularly interested in the conlang and who doesn't mind a bit of a scatty work in progress, you're very welcome to the links to have a nosey, but please message privately for them.

----

And that's it! Phew!

Heartfelt thank you for the additional. I put a crazy amount of time and effort into this project alongside my normal day job, so it's nice to have a few kind words that make me go all wibbly inside.

Also, it opens up a space to say that if anyone out there fancies keeping me conscious, there's a Ko-Fi page for that so I can get some caffeine.

[https://ko-fi.com/gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

Any purple text is educated guesswork or theoretical. More content ... →📫Got a question? | 📚Complete list of Q+A and factoids →😆Jokes |🩻Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts →🫀Gallifreyan Anatomy and Physiology Guide (pending) →⚕️Gallifreyan Emergency Medicine Guides →📝Source list (WIP) →📜Masterpost If you're finding your happy place in this part of the internet, feel free to buy a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious. She works full-time in medicine and is so very tired😴

[rowanthestrange]

Reminds me of these di/tri/tetragrams

look at these stripey light decorations on the things. thinking about the gallifreyan in 13s tardis

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

I’ve been doing a lot of writing in Gallifreyan recently so I’ve been thinking about Gallifreyan writing systems

We’ve seen that they have writing other than circular Gallifreyan, but I wonder how often they use each. I’d assume that things that need to be written quickly use linear Gallifreyan since writing your words and sentences in circular form isn’t the most convenient (though it probably is easier if it’s a writing system you grew up with)

Is it a case link where you learn to write in print first and then suddenly all your assignments have to be in cursive and then a grade later they decide they don’t care but some people still write in cursive (at least that was my experience with it), like cursive is circular Gallifreyan used less and less as the main writing system as the generations go on? Or is a case of both are used pretty equally in every day life (or one is used more than the other), but circular is the standard for professional/formal things

I also wonder which form is more commonly used in typing/books, because it seems like it would be much easier to type vs write circular Gallifreyan

[heimeldat]

Heimeldat! I have a weird question and I’d love to know what you think! What sort of calendar system do you think a temporally sensitive species like Gallifreyans would use? I’ve been wondering like, they’ve got to have some kind of official clock timekeeping and calendar, the Time Lords are way too officious and bureaucratic not to have some way to keep meetings scheduled and events organized. But what would that even look like? How would it work? Would it be something that could even be written down or would it just, live in the Matrix where they can access it like a giant Google drive? I dunno!

This is probably the dullest thing possible to be curious about but, how do you ask the question “what Earth year was this Time Lord born” and get any kind of answer? Like was the Master actually born in what would be 1800 or something? If you tried to hold the Doctor up to a calendar would they have been born in the year 3000 on an Earth scale? Like, what is “contemporary” Earth for them! Shh yes obviously it’s all and none but STILL.

This is stupid, I’m sorry, I just love your headcanons for things like this so I had to ask. No it doesn’t matter but I also want to know 😂

It's not stupid at all! I love getting this sort of ask, it's such fun to blather about my headcanons lol!

Right, so Gallifrey (or more accurately, the Eye of Harmony at the core of the planet) is one of the anchor points around which the entire Web of Time is woven, so it can't be part of regular continuity. The planet is described as existing "outside the meta-structure of history." Normal linear time does pass on Gallifrey, but it's a self-contained timeline, out of sync with the rest of the universe.

The result of this is that the Gallifreyan calendar is as straightforward as ours, but it can't be aligned with any other calendar in the universe. Gallifrey measures days, months, years, etc. just like any other planet, but those measurements only have meaning with reference to one another. You can convert length of time but not coinciding times. In other words, the Doctor can translate his age from Gallifreyan years to Earth years, but his Gallifreyan birth-year doesn't correspond to any particular year on Earth. All of spacetime is basically happening "now" from Gallifrey's perspective outside the Vortex-proper; conversely, everything in Gallifreyan history is happening "now" (or never) from the outside perspective.

Basically, when you're on Gallifrey, it's totally logical to ask "How long ago did Rassilon live?" but that question has no real meaning when you're anywhere else in spacetime. There's a correct answer to "Who was President of the Time Lords when the Doctor was born?" but there can't ever be a correct answer to "Who was King of England when the Doctor was born?" The Time Lords therefore don't consider any other civilization to be their "contemporaries" because everything offworld is seen as simultaneously long past and yet to occur. Gallifrey is the "single, all-seeing eye set apart from the rest of history" and they'll never let you forget it.

[natequarter]

Third times the Charm

Guessing game

Seven

K9 whirred lightly. “Essential readings: Linear Gallifreyan: An Introduction, chapter seven, and Ka Faraq Gatri: The Politics of Dalek Translation. Secondary readings—”

at last!

(link)

[linguistwho]

Phonetic Gallifreyan Weekend - Sentence 10:

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff." - The Tenth Doctor

[gotyouanyway]

i kind of wish all the destruction of gallifrey stuff said more about the eye of harmony because i think it’s pretty cool and important that it’s tethered to the planet itself

gallifrey anchors the continuity of the universe!! in an eternally dynamic equation against the mass of the planet! all of linear time is tethered to it, surely destroying it would have some apocalyptic consequences for the universe even beyond the death of all gallifreyans

[mhalachai]

1, 4, 17

1. What was the first fandom and/or pairing that you wrote fic for? 

I have some old-old notebooks that have unpublishable content for an antique show that lasted one season on NBC, Earth 2. I had a website for a show called Profiler, which was more focused on meta and character studies (under the handle Zarah back in the day). The first fic i wrote for was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I spent a few years writing there (back on Twisting the Hellmouth) and on various stuff on livejournal.

4. Do you outline before you start writing? If so, how far do you stray from that outline? 

I tend to have the outline for the big plot points in my head by the time I start writing, but the details flesh themselves out as I write, as well as some amount of characterization (esp. for OCs) and the humour of it all. 

So, for example, in my Hands of Clay story, I knew that Steve and Bucky were going to have a big misunderstanding about why Steve never told Bucky that he was bi after they met again as adults, but it didn’t occur to me to have it be the [redacted spoiler] that I mentioned in the second chapter, until I was writing like chapter 19.  

That moment of realization was glorious.  

17: What fic are you most proud of? 

I think as a complete piece? Hands of Clay, it stands together really well. And, abnormally in my writing, has a really solid ending. 

As an artistic piece? I’m partial to Marking Time, my “Neal Caffery is the Doctor’s great-grandson out of time” Doctor Who/White Collar story – it has a nice take on the non-linear flow of time from a Gallifreyan perspective.

From a sheer ‘fun’ perspective, Hour of the Wolf. That one is just fun to write. Weary time-travelling Allison is my favourite disaster. 

(from the Behind the Scenes of Fic Writing meme)

[doctordefinitearticle]

ana: is there a way to learn Gallifreyan? Totally not trying to learn it to impress anyone heh heh

-Smiles sheepishly-

@doctorwhozzat

Oh! Well, Gallifreyan is an extremely complex language. There are multiple ways to speak and write it, and all are used at the same time for different purposes! You've got new Gallifreyan, new high Gallifreyan, old Gallifreyan, old high Gallifreyan... There's a lot. Not to mention that the writing system also changes depending which one you're speaking/writing in! Most commonly used is the circular Gallifreyan writing, but there also exists a linear! Each of them splits into old and new. It may be possible for a human to learn, but so far I haven't seen anyone succeed. If you want to, I could try to help. Although I also have gotten a bit rusty... The way Gallifreyan is spoken would also be difficult for you to grasp. Most of it is spoken deep from the chest. Not the same way humans speak. Alien physiology is vastly different, thus actually speaking Gallifreyan could be a bit problematic.

As for the vocabulary, I've seen a certain account on here post some new Gallifreyan vocab! I think their tag is @/gallifreyinstituteforlearning . Hope that helps!

[vammieposts]

If timelords are in control of timetravel, do they have a specific main linear timeline that they use to keep track of their personal present and the ages of gallifreyans? Or is everything a form of present to them? Like to the doctor, would they keep track of what time it is currently on gallifrey based on when they were born/loomed? (Ignoring the timeless child because pre-hartnell doctors are kind of a different character in my eyes).

Also keep in mind all I’ve watched of the classic era is portions of 3’s run so who knows if I’ve missed something.

Also how long is a year on gallifrey compared to human years. They have two suns and I don’t know a lot about how that would work but maybe that would effect the length of the year. If they like orbit in some sort of figure 8 around both suns would a year be orbiting around one sun or both? Or maybe different regions on gallifrey have different calanders where one counts a full orbit while the other counts each sun individually. Thus gives us the question: when the doctor says their age, is it inconsistent simply because they don’t keep track or because there isn’t a main timeline for them? Or maybe when the doctor says their age it translates to earth years because of the tardis and it’s inconsistent due to occasionally goofy translation

This is a bit of a ramble so it probably doesn’t make sense and if there are answers somewhere in the void that is doctor who canon who knows but I’ve been thinking about age and time relating to gallifrey and idk. Maybe timelords have a different relationship with time than normal gallifreyans idk

Good thing I sat on the floor to type this tho or I wouldn’t have noticed the hot glue gun I left plugged in for two days :D

[ouidamforeman]

i know in the show it’s just a difference btwn nuwho and classic, but do u have any hcs for the uses of different forms of gallifreyan writing? Circular is obviously more time consuming so you would think it would be used for more ‘artistic’ purposes (the time lord version of art, maybe science or politics?) and the modern form for casual writing, but the show just sticks to the one form in nuwho even when circular would be impractical. then again when r time lords ever practical over aesthetic.

I actually hc that circular is generated by computers so it’s used in that capacity and I would guess it’s also more capable of conveying more complex information which would make sense why it’s used in some places and not others, such as technical situations and for ceremonial purposes. Linear Gallifreyan looks much more like something that would develop from a humanoid’s handwritten alphabet but circular really looks advanced and precisely computer generated to me. So not necessarily less practical or more aesthetic over substance, but more just a different type of communication, like how we have the alphabet but also mathematics