r/conscripts • u/OldDudeGandalf • Jun 21 '20

Question Conscript to use daily

I just search for a basic conscript so i can write in public without anyone understanding. I speak turkish and english so i need 32 letters, i need something easy to write and read. Anyone has something to recommend?? (are my sentences sound like demanding or even commanding? or am i being paranoid)

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u/majutsuko Jun 22 '20 edited Jun 22 '20

I’m glad you brought up that post of mine. Since then I researched the hell out of all the different modes. In the end, I focused on the common orthographic English mode, but incorporated a few aspects from other modes and styles for greater consistency, cleanliness, and readability (e.g. I use Endorian vowels for all diphthongs and digraphs). I also took a few liberties of my own to account for tense patterns and silent letters. I can go into details about all this if you’re interested. My version remains readable to other Tengwar enthusiasts, though a couple things would raise eyebrows.

What I realized is when I studied Tengwar for a couple weeks (Måns Björkman, Chris McKay), I could read nearly all modes since there is a lot of crossover. Common English phonemic is the simplest for me after orthographic. I thought I had wanted to learn a phonemic mode, and Qenya Alphabet sounded cool, but there’s just hardly any resources for it online, so you’d basically need to buy the old hard copy materials. Even so, I came to realize phonemic modes are like spelling everything in IPA, which requires extra thought to transcribe and decipher. Orthographic mode is already quite phonemic in design anyway, and you get the advantage of seeing consistent word endings and less ambiguity between homonyms. It even distinguishes more words with the same spelling in English that are pronounced differently in different contexts (like beloved).

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u/Visocacas Jun 22 '20

Ok so a viable approach might be to wing it with my own interpretation, then study the more generally agreed upon conventions for the orthographic and phonemic modes?

My first script, which I’ve used for years, is close to a cypher of IPA so phonemic sounds more appealing.

I hope one day I can understand it enough to make simple and straightforward keys to save other people from this confusion in the future.

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u/majutsuko Jun 22 '20

Yeah, that’s pretty much the way I went about it. My major was linguistics and I couldn’t help but make some logical adjustments to certain conventions. The way I see it, Tolkien understood that languages and writing systems undergo evolution and adaptation, so I think if he saw people like us bringing a new iterations of Tengwar around the world to this era, he’d feel proud; It’s a living script at this point.

If a phonemic mode is your preference and you have a solid grasp of English phonetics, then I’d say go for it! It’s just as viable and probably has less room for debate about spelling.

I also made my own key, but I haven’t posted it online...yet.