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Naeddyr — Phelthie Alphasyllabary Script

Published: 2008-06-12 13:04:56 +0000 UTC; Views: 8327; Favourites: 68; Downloads: 153
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Description An abugida I made in a couple of days for the.. Story-I'm-Currently-Writing Verse. Probably the best name is Ysi.

This script is an abugida, [link] or alphasyllabary. [link]

It is a very early second-generation writing system, either directly descended from a logographic [link] script, or from an abjad [link] or consonantal alphabet [link] that is descended from that early logographic script.

Abugidas are alphabets that are based on the idea that each grapheme has an inherent vowel, and that by writing that letter, you write a simple syllable, instead of just the consonant it represents. Thus, the letter P, without any modification, would be read as PA.

Most abugidas' inherent vowels are uniform, in that each consonant takes the same inherent vowel. In scripts based on scripts used to write Sanskrit, this is 'a', which was the most common vowel in Sanskrit by far, because many of the other vowels were reduced in Indic languages to, iirc, schwa, which was represented by 'a'. In other abugidas, the inherent vowels can be different, but these are usually systematic in that a certain group of consonants takes a certain vowel, &c. To write another vowel other than the inherent one, you add a diacritic to the consonant letter. Many abugidas (most?) also have separate letters for the vowels in syllables with an onset consonant.

The Brahmic scripts, which has been the main-inspiration for Phelthiê, were third generation writing systems based on Aramaic consonantal alphabets (which was an abjad of the Middle East descended from Phoenician, like the Hebrew script and Arabic script, etc.), and it was rather distant from the logographic writing that begot these abjads, that is, the Hieroglyphs.

Phelthiê is a second generation scripts, or a third generation script that is really close to the originating logographic script (unimaginatively named Classical Western Logographic script here). Thus, the consonant letters retained very strong names based on the reading of the original logographic characters, analogous to Aleph, Bet, Gimel and Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and so forth. Instead of using a uniform vowel for all the consonant letters, the Phelthiê script extended its historical base in the names of the logographs, and used the first vowel of the logograph's reading as the inherent vowel of the consonant letter.

Thanks for Cum Quesa for the idea, from whom I shamelessly stole it. He didn't come up with the backstory, though.

Otherwise, Phelthië is a pretty typical abugida. Vowels are shown by diacritics attached to the consonant letter, etc. etc. The phonotactics of the original language the script was written in was pretty simple: the maximal syllable is (C)(L/S)V(L)(N). It had aspiration and five places of articulation for plosives, plus voicing distinctions and, later on, voiceless nasals and a lateral fricative that developed from aspirated sonorants.

The version given here is an over-regular reconstruction. The names of the letters should be taken with an asterisk. Later languages have developed the script further.

I made a pretty preview picture, but you can't do that if you don't have to do that. > stoopid dA.
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Comments: 18

Nik-2213 [2020-02-07 04:30:08 +0000 UTC]

Wow. Just, wow...

When I needed an 'unknown' language, I swallowed my pride and bought a weird font...

WIRS_5 The Heptonstall Horror Part_8 Image

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countconkula [2011-08-24 08:37:36 +0000 UTC]

Woah, this is awesome. I hope to eventually become this fluent in constructed languages and constructed scripts. Right now I borrow excessively from real world languages, abugidas, abjeds, and alphabets. Unrelated to anything in particular: Logographs (like Chinese script) seem to be the hardest for me to understand/recreate.

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Naeddyr In reply to countconkula [2011-08-24 08:56:38 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for the comment and fave. Yes, logographies are really, really hard because they're so complex and usually they're also very much tied to a specific language or language family in origin. I'm currently working on a system to write Finnish in, where I'm trying to have a glyph for specific morphemes, and it will take many years before it's even close to ready. You can find some samples here.

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linzo69 [2009-01-19 00:26:28 +0000 UTC]

just so perfect

But can someone translate all this letters???
What the meaning of these???
I really want to know.If you have more of these scripts send it at mexicanos85@hotmail.com

Thanks

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Naeddyr In reply to linzo69 [2009-01-19 09:20:52 +0000 UTC]

The notes I used to evolve the letters are somewhere else, so I can't recall what the original glyphs represented. Sorries.

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BoingyMaster88 [2008-12-06 14:50:24 +0000 UTC]

OMG!

PRETTY SCRIPTY!

More please! It's so beautiful! Would love to see more of it. Do you have any other scripts?

Love you!

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Zefyrinus [2008-07-04 15:37:51 +0000 UTC]

Really nice! Looks like some Indian scripts, and maybe a little bit Mayan.

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Naeddyr In reply to Zefyrinus [2008-07-04 16:43:17 +0000 UTC]

Indian, yeah, but Mayan?

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Zefyrinus In reply to Naeddyr [2008-07-05 14:38:52 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, some of them, especially the closed graphemes, look a little like Mayan glyphs.

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Naeddyr In reply to Zefyrinus [2008-07-05 15:41:20 +0000 UTC]

Hey, yeah! Especially Qlhon. I didn't notice before.

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Zefyrinus In reply to Naeddyr [2008-07-07 17:00:37 +0000 UTC]

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Craewynn [2008-06-15 00:40:49 +0000 UTC]

Verrrrrrrrrrry nice, can't say I like the straight lines but then I've always been one for curvy, flowy letters :3

Almost makes me think I should get back to work on my language... almost.

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Naeddyr In reply to Craewynn [2008-06-15 06:17:18 +0000 UTC]

Waidasec, you're the Steampunk Zelda girl. You're a conlanger? Zat is awesome. :3

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Craewynn In reply to Naeddyr [2008-06-15 18:33:09 +0000 UTC]

Brahmician? Conlanger?
You make me feel so stupid, it's great!

Hmm.. I'll just assume Brahimican is a script and conlanger has something to do with creating languages... Hah... I have no real idea :3

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Naeddyr In reply to Craewynn [2008-06-15 19:30:00 +0000 UTC]

Brahmician was just a word I just made up for "South Asian scripts based on Brahmic", so basically everything around there. Abugidas, etc.

A conlanger is someone who makes con-langs: constructed languages. There's a whole internet reserved for this stuff, a good place to start might be [link]

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Naeddyr In reply to Craewynn [2008-06-15 06:05:54 +0000 UTC]

Oooh, so close!

Also, personally I was thinking if I shoulda just added more straight lines. But that would have looked too much like a Brahmician clone.

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Eddy1701 [2008-06-14 16:46:45 +0000 UTC]

Wow, quite a nice script you have there.

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Naeddyr In reply to Eddy1701 [2008-06-14 17:05:08 +0000 UTC]

Thanks, Eddy. I miss yoo. ;_;

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