#not me blatantly borrowing ideas from other language systems no definitely not

[sqarletsworldlesswandering]

Also on the train of Starfolk languages, do they have a writing system? If so, tell us more about it if it's okay!

(AKA my speculative evolution/ Worldbuilding lover inside of me is going feral right now /pos)

Writing gets kinda interesting, because how we do writing is vastly less efficient than sonar. However, they do have written language because realistically, they need to store information.

For them, picking up a pen and paper is a drastically inefficient way of recording things they otherwise communicate within a second, so they wouldn't necessarily develop that - they look for a way to go straight from sonar to writing.

In a sense, Inkwells are a natural version of this: You send sonar to the Inkwell, the Inkwell records. The trouble is, Inkwells have their own shorthand that they and Libellits can read that stores information more efficiently, but it can't really be read by anyone else, for two reasons: 1, it's not a proper alphabet system, 2, the information is stored partly by means of the essence that makes the ink. Receiving a sonar ping lets the Inkwell infuse that information into the writing, and the actual symbols involved are short-script and not interpretable. Libellits can read and interpret the essence directly.

Starfolk took this idea, then turned it into actual technology - a receiver collects the sonar, then translates it, and sends it to a print module that writes it out. Visually, the the receiver is a small sphere with two ports - one for a direct transfer cord, and one for a storage crystal. Storage crystals can have the information inscribed on them and stored indefinitely. The direct transfer cord plugs into the receiver on one end, then in or onto the reading medium at the other. The reading medium is usually either a scroll or a stone tablet. If it's a scroll, simply press the end of the cord to the top, and it will start writing. The same goes for a tablet, unless it has a designated "port" carved into it. Specifically crafted tablets will have a reading port for crystals, with a rotating dial to let you peruse the contents. The "ink" used for this is colored light bound inside the crystal that writes out onto the surface. However, you can temporarily infuse the crystal with actual ink if you wish for a permanent copy.

From this format, the starfolk developed multiple different formats of the tool, some more compact, some larger scale, some as one item, some more complex, depending on the need.

As for the writing system itself, they use a hybrid of alphabet and "glyph". The letters of the alphabet stack and connect with each other to form the word, and the resulting word appears as a single image within a 2-inch diameter circle. These circles then have marks surrounding them to convey additional information where necessary: dots for number, dashes for person, vertical lines for tense, and rings around the circle for gender. Their system reads in concentric "orbits" - subject in the center, direct objects orbit the subject, indirect objects orbit direct objects, verbs orbit their direct objects (roughly. This is not a critically thought out linguistic system in the slightest). A full "solar system" is a sentence, and those systems are placed up-to-down on the reading surface. Later light projection technology allows them to stack the systems while laying each system flat like an actual solar system, and is vastly more space efficient.