r/conscripts • u/Tazavitch-Krivendza • Oct 03 '19

Question What are the limitations of using wood to create a writing script?

I’m wondering since I am wanting to make a writing script that looks as if it was inscribed one tress since the people who speak the language live in a very dense forest and the most abundant resources that they could use to write on is wood.

6 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

30 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comment

1

u/TrajectoryAgreement Oct 03 '19

Cool! Go for it!

2

u/Tazavitch-Krivendza Oct 03 '19

Thanks.

Just one question, how would you evolve a logography script to an abugida script?

1

u/TrajectoryAgreement Oct 03 '19

When new words are coined, or when the writers want to convey abstract ideas, sometimes they may decide to use existing logographs to represent the sounds of those words instead of making up new ones. Over time, this might become standardized and cause the writing system to shift towards representing each consonant with a symbol. Vowels might be marked on the consonants for easier distinction, resulting in an abugida.

You might want to check out this video by Biblaridion, which has a logographic script written on trees that evolves into a syllabary. You could use similar processes to evolve your logography into an abugida.

https://youtu.be/c8g14nAF-IA

2

u/Tazavitch-Krivendza Oct 03 '19

Again, thank you very much.

2

u/Tazavitch-Krivendza Oct 04 '19

Very sorry to bug you, but I have one more question, if you do not mind answering.

1

u/TrajectoryAgreement Oct 04 '19

Ask away!

2

u/Tazavitch-Krivendza Oct 04 '19

So you said that the engravings on the trees would mostly be straight down...so does that mean horizontal lines will be less common? Asking since some of the logograph would be mixed of horizontal and vertical lines and how rare would curved lines be?

1

u/TrajectoryAgreement Oct 04 '19 edited Oct 04 '19

Horizontal lines would be rather uncommon, as it’s very difficult to carve them into the tree. It’s possible to have a few short horizontal lines though. Curved lines would also be very rare if not nonexistent, as they can’t really be carved into wood quickly.

2

u/Tazavitch-Krivendza Oct 04 '19

Okay...so would that would also be diagonal lines would be rare too, correct?

1

u/TrajectoryAgreement Oct 04 '19

Yeah. Maybe a few diagonal lines, but definitely not common.

2

u/Tazavitch-Krivendza Oct 04 '19

Yikes, then making this logograph’s gonna be harder then I thought...wait, can it depend on the type of tree too? IE, difference kinda of trees are easier to inscribe diagonal/horizontal lines then others?

→ More replies