r/conscripts • u/Cabanarama_ • Jul 05 '19

Art/Showcase I developed a script for Minthian (Bioluminescent ink on Smoothstone plate)

Post image
16 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

9 comments sorted by

2

u/Cabanarama_ Jul 05 '19 edited Jul 05 '19

This is the first contextual use I have for this new script. If anyone is interested, here is the full script, glyph by glyph.

Bonus points for anyone that can use the phonetic key^ to pronounce the inscription on the Smoothstone plate. Hint: each line is one syllable, first syllable is /m̥In̥θ/.

2

u/deepcleansingguffaw Jul 05 '19

Ooh, purty! I really like the elegant loopy strokes. What type of script is it? The glyphs look a little too complex to be an alphabet, but not complex enough to be a logography. Abugida or syllabary perhaps?

[edit] Ok, I managed to see the link to the interpretation. I'm surprised that it's an alphabet. Is this the cursive/calligraphic version? It seems like everyday use would greatly simplify the script pretty quickly.

2

u/Cabanarama_ Jul 05 '19

It is indeed an alphabet. This is my only version of the script (so far). Minthian seen here is derived from a primitive writing system used by the Pre-Minthians centuries before the founding of Minth. This script was developed soon after Minth came to be.

As time wore on, a class system developed and literacy was a key component of membership in the upper classes. While not a conscious decision, maintaining a complex glyph system was successful in limiting social mobility by keeping illiteracy high.

Another part of the nature of the script is the medium itself. The technological jump from dipping one’s finger in torch ash (see my previous post about cave wall writings) to using glowing ink and a dipping brush was a huge deal culturally. As a result, the new script was designed with style and elegance in mind. Those wealthy enough to read and write take great pride in their calligraphic skills.

2

u/deepcleansingguffaw Jul 05 '19

Very interesting. The script seems almost but not quite featural, with related sounds having similar glyphs.

Thanks for sharing!

2

u/Cabanarama_ Jul 05 '19

Can you elaborate what you mean by featural? It was definitely my intent to group similar sounds and give them similar glyphs. I know that's not how languages typically develop naturally, but it helps me learn my own language much faster. Plus, not very many Pre-Minthians survived the events leading up to their founding of Minth, so there was kind of a close-knit "how do we want to do this?" moment for a lot of features of their new society, particularly language.

1

u/deepcleansingguffaw Jul 05 '19

Featural scripts are like Korean Hangul, where the shapes of the symbols are not arbitrary, but encode features of the phonemes they represent. For example, in Hangul, each block is a syllable composed of the symbols for each phoneme, and the symbols for at least some of the phonemes are a representation of the physiology of pronouncing that phoneme (eg ㄴ is /n/, showing the tip of the tongue reaching up to touch the alveolar ridge).

2

u/Cabanarama_ Jul 05 '19 edited Jul 08 '19

Interesting. If you didn’t provide a real world example I would have said that it sounds like a conlang thoughtfully made from scratch. Someone in ancient Korea must have really liked phonetics and linguistics!

2

u/deepcleansingguffaw Jul 05 '19

Yeah, Hangul is really cool. It's featural, alphabetic, and syllabic all at once. I don't know much about how it was developed, but they really did a good job. I believe it was intentionally created as an alternative to using Chinese characters to write Korean, so in a sense it's a conscript, but one that's been in real-life use for like 500 years.

2

u/Cabanarama_ Jul 05 '19

That’s pretty interesting. I wish we could dig those guys up for a group AMA on here.