#logography

[dedalvs]

Lexember (December 7th)

Today's Valyrian glyph is zālagon "to burn". The glyph is a fire underneath something that's being cooked. Looks like a cinder block, but it's probably just a thing. I don't remember what originally it was in the first drawing, but it's definitely a thing. Not a cinder block. Despite the fact that it really looks like a cinder block.

[igoryelin]

A sample of what the Asamic script used for my conlang (Asamvuk) looks like now.

I post it mostly for the aesthetics, BUT:

as you can see, some characters are more complex than others. for example the 2nd one is a single syllable ("ḋa" /d͡ʐa/ – animal)

then there are the complex characters, made up of two to four base (simple, single syllable) characters. characters 4-6 are made up of two base characters (the 6th is "ma" (about) + "sọŀ" (meeting) = "masọŀ" /masʲɔw/ – conference)

characters 1 and 3 are made up of three base characters.

the 3rd one means "wild animal" (one that specifically lives in a forest). the first two characters are both "sạ" /sʲa/ – plant. together they mean "forest". BUT the third one is "ḋa" /d͡ʐa/ – animal. together they give us "sạsạḋa" /sʲa.sʲa.d͡ʐa/ – wild animal.

simple. the Asamic script might have many many thousands of characters in total, but you can read most of them knowing only.....a couple thousand!

one word = one character

90% of the time you stack the characters from top to bottom, left to right. but there are exceptions, where the characters have a more original structure, like:

• a 2:1 size ratio (characters size) instead of the standard 1:1. 2:1 is used for example for making adverbs: the character turning the adjective into an adverb has no reason to be as big as the adjective itself!

• in characters made up of 3 base characters, one (usually the first one) might be half the size of the entire character instead of 1/3. also to show its the most important part of it.

• characters made up of 4 base characters are practically always standard in structure.

[amaranstein]

Making an unreadable book (Amaranscript)

[sonkfan005]

if you don't know the meaning of these words just choose what feels right

[jjuin-lang]

here's a test for a ligature-based logogram! the first is "my" and the second is "ttat"

for convenience, I am using the same syllables as Jjuin, but jjuin doesn't have a logography

im happy that my plan worked

it was more of a test to see whether or not abusing ligatures like that could work, and how to use the built-in drawing functions of fontforge

the design of the glyphs themselves is..... fine. TTAT is a little slanted (but im okay with the shape), and MY looks a little too much like そ (and MY also doesn't represent a "person" very well either)

i quite like the style of blocky, thick lines like that. I may use it for my next latin typeface

now I have to fix the latin non-combined letters because they look. bad (I didn't put any effort on them) (they are not the focus of the project)

im using fontforge for these

im having an issue with fontforge that when I have multiple separate shapes that overlap, sometimes they combine smoothly, and sometimes they invert each other (I hope that makes sense) (as in, the parts of the two shapes that are overlapping are blank, while the rest is shaded in properly)

if anyone has advice on how to fix this or any criticism/ advice / etc on my glyphs, I'd love to hear it, as I'm new to this lol

[aesthetic-mushroom-cultist]

I have started ANOTHER conlang aughhhh😭

Word for today:

kòp (IPA: ko:b˩)

n.

physical object, physical thing

This character uses the root word, kò [ko:˩] which means "be", and an affix (the horizontal line at the top) that makes it a physical noun.

Note: EVERY word in this language has an affix or suffix attached to it. The root words themselves are considered meaningless in formal conversation, but is used in informal coversations to represent their base concepts.

The origin of the root character "kò" actually comes from the shape of an extremely common marsh dwelling bird, which are considered messengers of the gods sent to survey the land. If you squint you might (?) be able to see the bird with its little puffed out belly!!!

For the sound it makes, (kò) it comes from the mating call of the bird.

[letterrankingworldchampionship]

We are going to rank 32 different letters from several different alphabets, abjads, abugidas, logographies, syllabaries, and unclear classifications from several different alphabets!!

please vote.

[systemsearcher]

Arachnal Rune

And now, a not-so-little sigil for the same character.

Posted using PostyBirb

[senome]

June 2: Red Cedar and Senome

Small update-

THIS IS NOT MY NEW CONLANG, THIS IS SENOME, THE NEW ONE IS SENOM

I’m currently working on incorporating the many ideas I have for it into a nature collection and how Senumians use them, as well to showcase the logographs I’ve been working on

This is a prototype to a digital version, so it looks weird. Also, I’m also working on the logographs and how to make pictograms of abstract ideals, but there is a preview in this prototype here!

[cyansconlangs]

Can we just classify English spelling as a logography at this point these individual components barely represent any phonetic sound nowadays

[dedalvs]

Random question:

So a while back I read something where someone was talking about how if English spelling were reformed so every sound had a unique symbol that we’d lose the “visual alliteration” of Cape Cod.

I cannot figure out what that means. Are those /k/ sounds not both [k]? The only difference I’ve been able to notice is a feeling of the airstream moving outward in “Cape” and inward in “Cod”, but I can’t tell if that’s due to vowel influence or what.

Let's back up. The "someone" who was talking about this was either (a) wrong, (b) uncooperatively pedantic, or (c) imagining a very specific, non-alphabetic spelling reform of English (e.g. spelling English with logographic or syllabic glyphs).

Assuming (b), the only way that English spelling could be reformed such that the C's in Cape Cod would be different is if the spelling reforming was as sensitive as a narrow IPA transcription. If that was the case, then there are some transcriptions of English that would transcribe the first as [kʰʲ] and the second as [kʰ]. This level is detail is phonologically important for some languages. English is not one of these. A sensible spelling reform would spell those the same, whether C (because all instances of [k] become C) or K (because all instances of [k] become K). A nonsensical spelling reform would actually spell aspirated and unaspirated voiceless stops different, but even then, these two would be the same, as they're both aspirated.

The airstream is the same for both (egressive). What you're feeling, I expect, is the very slight movement in tongue position as the initial [k], which is palatalized, moves backward to an unpalatalized position. The reason you feel this is the tongue doesn't have to do anything in between the onset of the first word and the onset of the second. The tongue gets in position for [e], and in this position you can pronounce [k] well enough, then with [p], your tongue doesn't have to do anything; the lips take care of it. This means your tongue body can remain in place. For "Cod", it moves back as the tongue prepares to pronounce [ɑ] (or whatever back vowel you have there). Notice also that the tongue body has to go down, the tongue tip retracting slightly to pronounce [ɑ]. That's all part of it.

Now, assuming (c), yeah, that's indeed going to happen. Consider Japanese katakana. This is how "Cape Cod" is spelled: ケープコッド /keːpu koddo/. The relevant characters—the ones that begin each syllable—are ケ /ke/ and コ /ko/. And, yeah, they're different, so you do lose the visual alliteration. However, what you lose in visual similarity you gain in economy. To write /ka, ke, ki, ko, ku/ in an alphabet you need 6 different letter forms and 10 total glyphs. To write the same thing in katakana you need 5 different letter forms and 5 total glyphs. Consider an old style text message, which had a hard character count. A syllabary allows you to fit more letters in than an alphabet because each character encodes more information. When it comes to sheer character count, then, the Japanese writing system is much more efficient when it comes to writing Japanese than the English Romanization is.

Of course, that's for Japanese. For English it doesn't make as much sense because of our overabundance of consonant clusters. Typing lava in an alphabet takes 4 characters; in a syllabary, it takes 2. Typing straps, though, requires 6 characters in an alphabet and 5 in a syllabary. That doesn't save you a lot space—and a syllabary like Japanese's throws in extra vowels that have to be there, even if they're not pronounced, destroying its efficiency by, essentially, adding extra noise to the signal. Returning to straps, you have 6 characters, and all elements are vocalized. In katakana, you'd have to do ストラプス /sutorapusu/. You save a character with ラ /ra/, but then you have a whole bunch of vowels you have to remember not to pronounce.

Long story short, if you were going to reform the English spelling system, I don't think a syllabary (or even an abugida) makes sense, and a logography would be quite a thing to drop on the unsuspecting populace, even if it would be more equitable. This is why I guessed that what you overheard wasn't (c) and was likely (b).

Anyway, that's my 2¢. Hope it helps.

[marcadel]

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[amaranstein]

Doodles featuring my logography (W.I.P) Amaranscript

[frogshunnedshadows]

designing an alphabet is fucking HARD. weh.

[blujayonthewing]

elvish and dwarvish should have logographies in addition to syllabaries or alphabets