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Description

The Kumdeu Script (pronounced /kumdʒu/) (“the script”) is the main writing system used by the Saldauva'm Conglomerate, who speak the Keskau language, a triconsonantal root language, like the Semitic languages of Earth. The Saldauva'm Conglomerate is an alliance of multiple nations in the Sylsho subcontinent. The Saldau are the dominant ethnic group, and so have had their culture become standard among the others in the Conglomerate, including their language and their script, which is the focus of today’s post.

But before we can discuss anything any further, we must talk about the nature of the Kumdeu Script itself. The Kumdeu Script refers to both the alphabet (Xuxau) and the more ancient logography (Bomjau). Xuxau is an alphabetic script, but unlike the boring Latin alphabet, Xuxau more resembles Korean Hangul in the way it organizes its syllables into blocks. Somewhat. Bomjau is a logography, meaning a single symbol represents a word or concept, and is not written phonetically like most other writing systems. Think Chinese as an example of a logographic writing system. To understand why the Saldauva’m use both Xuxau and Bomjau, we must go over some history.

The Bomjau script, while it has gone through changes in the way it's written, was created thousands of years ago by desert nomads, and was written onto stones. Bomjau would later go on to be written on “paper” as the nomads became sedentary and started building sedentary societies. But more importantly, the language’s grammar would begin to grow more synthetic and less isolating, and this coincided with the emergence of characters that represent sounds rather than concepts, and this would ultimately render a superior design. The scribes, though, considered the logography to be of great importance, as it connected them to their ancestors. Eventually, scribes would go on to interface both Bomjau and Xuxau, creating the Kumdeu system. In this system, all verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are to be written in Xuxau, while nouns are to be written in Bomjau. However, some abstract nouns are written in Xuxau, but most are written in Bomjau. Derivational markings, however, can be written in both Xuxau and Bomaju. With Xuxau, it’s pretty simple, but what about Bomjau? Take, for example, “Saldauva’m.” “Saldauva’m” is a combination of “Saldau” and “Vamna,” which, in this context specifically, is shortened to “va’m,” and becomes a suffix. “Saldau” refers to the Saldau people, while “-va’m” acts sort of like an endonym. Take, for example, America vs American. In Kumdeu, “-va’m” is written with a logograph, since the concept itself is, to an extent, abstract. While one can write Bomjau words in Xuxau, it’s not “grammatical,” and may even be seen as a very informal, almost childish way of spelling. The only time it would be okay to write a Bomjau word in Xuxua is if the noun has undergone denominalization.

With that out of the way, let’s look at Xuxau…

Xuxau, like said before, is an alphabet, and arranges its letters into syllable blocks. Xuxau syllable blocks that are CVC are written first with the vowel, placed in the center, and then with the onset to the left and the coda to the right. In CV syllable blocks, the vowel is written, along with the onset at the left. In VC syllable blocks, the vowel is written, and the coda is written to the right. And lastly, in strictly V syllables (only a vowel, no consonant), a “vowel complement” is placed to the right. The vowel complement is simply the letter for /j/. Because /j/ never appears at the end of a word without a vowel after it, it is the ideal letter to also use as a symbol to denote a complete syllable block. For example, an example word like “kuluj” cannot exist, and so an “epenthetic” “e” is added to the end, rendering “kuluje.”

In addition to the vowel complement, other symbols exist, like the vowel holder and vowel diacritics. The vowel holder is the main thing to hold vowels, as its name suggests. A vowel must first have the vowel holder written, and then the vowel diacritic is written above. In addition, because Keskau has vowel length, whenever a long vowel must be written, the diacritic is just duplicated. And similar to vowel length, Keskau also allows for diphthongs, and when a diphthong must be written, the first vowel is written, and the second vowel is connected to its right, but is written smaller than the main vowel. If there is a consonant after, the consonant is shrunken down and placed under the connected vowel of the diphthong.

Many Shrith languages have tones, but many don’t care to write them down, including Kumdeu. Tones are simply inferred rather than written.

Let’s now look at Bomjau…

Bomjau, like said before, is a logography, meaning every character represents a word. However, the characters mostly correlate to tangible things or easy-to-understand concepts. For more specific or abstract things and concepts, though, multiple characters need to be used. For example, the word “person” is only one character, but there is no single character for “people,” and instead, the character for person is coupled with the character for “many.” No “connecter” is used when logographs are combined to convey a word that doesn’t have a single symbol dedicated to it.

The Saldauva’m are a progressive (in the sense that their society adapts and changes a lot) and logical people, and so spelling is often updated when it needs to be. They feel it is best to update the Xuxau alphabet as significant sound changes occur. Pretty much all plosives have a single letter dedicated to them, but that wasn’t always the case. The reason this is done is so it's easier to differentiate verbs. For example, if “g-g-g” and “gg-gg-gg” were both spelled with the same characters, it would be a little difficult to figure out, and so Saldauva’m scribes have modified certain plosive letters to denote an aspirated plosive.

Description

The Kumdeu Script (pronounced /kumdʒu/) (“the script”) is the main writing system used by the Saldauva'm Conglomerate, who speak the Keskau language, a triconsonantal root language, like the Semitic languages of Earth. The Saldauva'm Conglomerate is an alliance of multiple nations in the Sylsho subcontinent. The Saldau are the dominant ethnic group, and so have had their culture become standard among the others in the Conglomerate, including their language and their script, which is the focus of today’s post.

But before we can discuss anything any further, we must talk about the nature of the Kumdeu Script itself. The Kumdeu Script refers to both the alphabet (Xuxau) and the more ancient logography (Bomjau). Xuxau is an alphabetic script, but unlike the boring Latin alphabet, Xuxau more resembles Korean Hangul in the way it organizes its syllables into blocks. Somewhat. Bomjau is a logography, meaning a single symbol represents a word or concept, and is not written phonetically like most other writing systems. Think Chinese as an example of a logographic writing system. To understand why the Saldauva’m use both Xuxau and Bomjau, we must go over some history.

The Bomjau script, while it has gone through changes in the way it's written, was created thousands of years ago by desert nomads, and was written onto stones. Bomjau would later go on to be written on “paper” as the nomads became sedentary and started building sedentary societies. But more importantly, the language’s grammar would begin to grow more synthetic and less isolating, and this coincided with the emergence of characters that represent sounds rather than concepts, and this would ultimately render a superior design. The scribes, though, considered the logography to be of great importance, as it connected them to their ancestors. Eventually, scribes would go on to interface both Bomjau and Xuxau, creating the Kumdeu system. In this system, all verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are to be written in Xuxau, while nouns are to be written in Bomjau. However, some abstract nouns are written in Xuxau, but most are written in Bomjau. Derivational markings, however, can be written in both Xuxau and Bomaju. With Xuxau, it’s pretty simple, but what about Bomjau? Take, for example, “Saldauva’m.” “Saldauva’m” is a combination of “Saldau” and “Vamna,” which, in this context specifically, is shortened to “va’m,” and becomes a suffix. “Saldau” refers to the Saldau people, while “-va’m” acts sort of like an endonym. Take, for example, America vs American. In Kumdeu, “-va’m” is written with a logograph, since the concept itself is, to an extent, abstract. While one can write Bomjau words in Xuxau, it’s not “grammatical,” and may even be seen as a very informal, almost childish way of spelling. The only time it would be okay to write a Bomjau word in Xuxua is if the noun has undergone denominalization.

With that out of the way, let’s look at Xuxau…

Xuxau, like said before, is an alphabet, and arranges its letters into syllable blocks. Xuxau syllable blocks that are CVC are written first with the vowel, placed in the center, and then with the onset to the left and the coda to the right. In CV syllable blocks, the vowel is written, along with the onset at the left. In VC syllable blocks, the vowel is written, and the coda is written to the right. And lastly, in strictly V syllables (only a vowel, no consonant), a “vowel complement” is placed to the right. The vowel complement is simply the letter for /j/. Because /j/ never appears at the end of a word without a vowel after it, it is the ideal letter to also use as a symbol to denote a complete syllable block. For example, an example word like “kuluj” cannot exist, and so an “epenthetic” “e” is added to the end, rendering “kuluje.”

In addition to the vowel complement, other symbols exist, like the vowel holder and vowel diacritics. The vowel holder is the main thing to hold vowels, as its name suggests. A vowel must first have the vowel holder written, and then the vowel diacritic is written above. In addition, because Keskau has vowel length, whenever a long vowel must be written, the diacritic is just duplicated. And similar to vowel length, Keskau also allows for diphthongs, and when a diphthong must be written, the first vowel is written, and the second vowel is connected to its right, but is written smaller than the main vowel. If there is a consonant after, the consonant is shrunken down and placed under the connected vowel of the diphthong.

Many Shrith languages have tones, but many don’t care to write them down, including Kumdeu. Tones are simply inferred rather than written.

Let’s now look at Bomjau…

Bomjau, like said before, is a logography, meaning every character represents a word. However, the characters mostly correlate to tangible things or easy-to-understand concepts. For more specific or abstract things and concepts, though, multiple characters need to be used. For example, the word “person” is only one character, but there is no single character for “people,” and instead, the character for person is coupled with the character for “many.” No “connecter” is used when logographs are combined to convey a word that doesn’t have a single symbol dedicated to it.

The Saldauva’m are a progressive (in the sense that their society adapts and changes a lot) and logical people, and so spelling is often updated when it needs to be. They feel it is best to update the Xuxau alphabet as significant sound changes occur. Pretty much all plosives have a single letter dedicated to them, but that wasn’t always the case. The reason this is done is so it's easier to differentiate verbs. For example, if “g-g-g” and “gg-gg-gg” were both spelled with the same characters, it would be a little difficult to figure out, and so Saldauva’m scribes have modified certain plosive letters to denote an aspirated plosive.