Semi-syllabary: mix of alphabet, abugida and syllabary?

[MoonRightRomantic]

I'm thinking on constructing a script based on Old Persian and the Paleohispanic scripts. Old Persian was similar to Brahmic scripts in that its consonants had inherent vowel /a/ and no explicit notation for vowel dropping, but had independent vowels like an alphabet; like Latin and Etruscan <c k q>, some of its consonants changed appearance depending on the following vowel. The Paleohispanic scripts were initially alphabetic after being adopted from Phonecian, but their languages lacked vowel clusters for plosives and later versions of the script made stops into syllabary graphs.

I thought such an irregular system would feel more real compared to typical regular constructed scripts. What do you think?

Edit: Sorry, some Old Persian consonants changed graph depending on the following vowel while others use the graph with inherent vowel /a/ or /Ø/ followed by the vowel it changed to. Paleohispanic languages lacked consonant clusters using plosives.

[GrandPiano]

like Latin and Etruscan <c k q>, some of its consonants changed appearance depending on the following vowel.

I dunno about Etruscan, but the usage of <C K Q> in Latin didn't depend on the following vowel. <C> and <K> were always /k/, and <QU> was always /kʷ/. <C> was used in native words, while <K> (when it was used) was used in Greek loanwords. Sound changes later led to some Romance languages using <qu> for /k/ before <i> and <e> because <c> represents /s/ or /t͡ʃ/ in that position, but Latin itself, when it was spoken as an ordinary language, did not do this.

[Creyeditor]

like Latin and Etruscan <c k q>, some of its consonants changed appearance depending on the following vowel.

I dunno about Etruscan, but the usage of <C K Q> in Latin didn't depend on the following vowel. <C> and <K> were always /k/, and <QU> was always /kʷ/. <C> was used in native words, while <K> (when it was used) was used in Greek loanwords. Sound changes later led to some Romance languages using <qu> for /k/ before <i> and <e> because <c> represents /s/ or /t͡ʃ/ in that position, but Latin itself, when it was spoken as an ordinary language, did not do this.

I thought in older stages it was <Q> before <U>, <K> before <A> and <C> before <E>,<I>,<O>, but I'm not sure.

[Ephraim]

I think it's true that the use of <C Q K> depended on the following vowel in the earliest Latin inscriptions, all representing both voiced and voiceless sounds. <Q> seems to have been used before both <V> and <O>. Of course, there may very well have been some variation, though.

From Wikipedia:
In the earliest Latin inscriptions, the letters C, K and Q were all used to represent the two sounds /k/ and /ɡ/, which were not differentiated in writing. Of these, Q was used before a rounded vowel (e.g. ⟨EQO⟩ 'ego'), K before /a/, and C elsewhere. Later, the use of C (and its variant G) replaced most usages of K and Q: Q survived only to represent /k/ when immediately followed by a /w/ sound.[2] The Etruscans used Q in conjunction with V to represent /kʷ/.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q#History

It seems like the letters often followed a similar distribution in Etruscan:
"In the course of its simplification, the redundant letters showed some tendency towards a syllabary: C, K and Q were predominantly used in the contexts CE, KA, QU."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Itali ... n_alphabet

Similarly, in early Greek, I think the letter Qoppa <Ϙ> was sometimes used before back vowels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koppa_(letter)

[Egerius]

I thought in older stages it was <Q> before <U>, <K> before <A> and <C> before <E>,<I>,<O>, but I'm not sure.

Almost. Originally, in Old Latin it was: <K> before <A>, <C> before <E>, <I> and <Q> before <V>, <O>. Spellings like tequm for tecum were used also long after the birth of Christ, at least by a solider in Egypt.
Source: Go to page 72

[GrandPiano]

Hm, guess I was wrong, then. I was going based on my knowledge of later conventions.

[Keenir]

I'm thinking on constructing a script based on Old Persian and the Paleohispanic scripts. Old Persian was similar to Brahmic scripts in that its consonants had inherent vowel /a/ and no explicit notation for vowel dropping, but had independent vowels like an alphabet; like Latin and Etruscan <c k q>, some of its consonants changed appearance depending on the following vowel. The Paleohispanic scripts were initially alphabetic after being adopted from Phonecian, but their languages lacked vowel clusters for plosives and later versions of the script made stops into syllabary graphs.

I thought such an irregular system would feel more real compared to typical regular constructed scripts. What do you think?

I think your idea has great potential. what you've described (regardless of RL details like what specific consonants were involved) is a great basis to work with.

[MoonRightRomantic]

I decided to revisit this topic after I finally worked out the details of a regular yet quirky orthography inspired by Old Persian cuneiform and Meroïtic script.

• Abugida with inherent vowel /a/ and long vowel indicated by following vowel: <s sa> /s(a) sa:/
• Independent vowels indicated with separate letters with no distinction for length: <a i u> /a(:) i(:) u(:)/
• Vowel changed with diacritics and following vowels with no distinction between long and short vowels: <śi s̫u> /si(:) su(:)/
• Diphthongs indicated by mismatching diacritic and following vowel: <si su śa śu s̫a s̫i> /sai sau sja sju swa swi/
• Optional virama diacritic used to indicate short or null vowels: <a̖ a i̖ i u̖ u s̖ s sa śi̖ śi s̫u̖ s̫u> /a a: i i: u u: s sa sa: si si: su su:/

Critique?

Edit: The diphthongs are mistaken. The semivowels have their own consonant.

[elemtilas]

I decided to revisit this topic after I finally worked out the details of a regular yet quirky orthography inspired by Old Persian cuneiform and Meroïtic script.

• Abugida with inherent vowel /a/ and long vowel indicated by following vowel: <s sa> /s(a) sa:/
• Independent vowels indicated with separate letters with no distinction for length: <a i u> /a(:) i(:) u(:)/
• Vowel changed with diacritics and following vowels with no distinction between long and short vowels: <śi s̫u> /si(:) su(:)/
• Diphthongs indicated by mismatching diacritic and following vowel: <si su śa śu s̫a s̫i> /sai sau sja sju swa swi/
• Optional virama diacritic used to indicate short or null vowels: <a̖ a i̖ i u̖ u s̖ s sa śi̖ śi s̫u̖ s̫u> /a a: i i: u u: s sa sa: si si: su su:/

Critique?

Naturally, I like the idea much! Any chance to mix-n-match writing systems is a chance that ought to be snatched.

I'd be curious to learn the back story, though. How did this system come about in it s (presumably) fictional setting?

[MoonRightRomantic]

Naturally, I like the idea much! Any chance to mix-n-match writing systems is a chance that ought to be snatched.

I'd be curious to learn the back story, though. How did this system come about in it s (presumably) fictional setting?

I don't know where to begin imagining one because we have no idea how Old Persian and Meroïtic were devised. I used diacritics a la Brahmic scripts for simplicity when typing, but those inspiring scripts were partly composed of redundant syllabograms. Old Persian used syllabograms to indicate explicit diphthongs without writing a second vowel but in other cases diphthongs were implicit. Meroïtic is speculated to have used syllabograms as determinatives.

Edit: According to this reference Old Persian may have started out more regular before being trumped by a more ambiguous script.

[elemtilas]

Naturally, I like the idea much! Any chance to mix-n-match writing systems is a chance that ought to be snatched.

I'd be curious to learn the back story, though. How did this system come about in it s (presumably) fictional setting?

I don't know where to begin imagining one because we have no idea how Old Persian and Meroïtic were devised. I used diacritics a la Brahmic scripts for simplicity when typing, but those inspiring scripts were partly composed of redundant syllabograms. Old Persian used syllabograms to indicate explicit diphthongs without writing a second vowel but in other cases diphthongs were implicit. Meroïtic is speculated to have used syllabograms as determinatives.

Edit: According to this reference Old Persian may have started out more regular before being trumped by a more ambiguous script.

Doesn't much matter how Persian writing got started -- the whole point is to create something wonderful for us to admire! Talarian writing is based on Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform, Hellado-Eosphoran alphabetic script and some eastern Eosphoran system of ideograms and also the Yllurian alphabet. I didn't really bother much with the real world origins of Greek or Sumerian or whatnot. Early Talarian speakers wouldn't have been aware of the earlier history of those writing systems anyway -- they just borrowed and moved on.

Absence of history is no excuse to leave the history unmade!

[MoonRightRomantic]

Naturally, I like the idea much! Any chance to mix-n-match writing systems is a chance that ought to be snatched.

I'd be curious to learn the back story, though. How did this system come about in it s (presumably) fictional setting?

I don't know where to begin imagining one because we have no idea how Old Persian and Meroïtic were devised. I used diacritics a la Brahmic scripts for simplicity when typing, but those inspiring scripts were partly composed of redundant syllabograms. Old Persian used syllabograms to indicate explicit diphthongs without writing a second vowel but in other cases diphthongs were implicit. Meroïtic is speculated to have used syllabograms as determinatives.

Edit: According to this reference Old Persian may have started out more regular before being trumped by a more ambiguous script.

Doesn't much matter how Persian writing got started -- the whole point is to create something wonderful for us to admire! Talarian writing is based on Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform, Hellado-Eosphoran alphabetic script and some eastern Eosphoran system of ideograms and also the Yllurian alphabet. I didn't really bother much with the real world origins of Greek or Sumerian or whatnot. Early Talarian speakers wouldn't have been aware of the earlier history of those writing systems anyway -- they just borrowed and moved on.

Absence of history is no excuse to leave the history unmade!

Old Persian seems to have started, when it was being devised by scribes and loosely influenced by the cuneiform syllabaries, as a syllabary with /a/ deletion which through simplification became defective to the point of being a haphazard mix of syllabary and alphabet with inherent vowel /a/. This makes it very similar to Bamum script, moreso than Meroitic which seems to have started as an alphabet derived from Egyptian hieroglyphics like its contemporaneous alphabets.

I imagine that my script would have started out similarly to other Egyptian-derived alphabets. Like the brahmic scripts it has an inherent vowel, but like alphabets the other vowels are written linearly and independently.

My script logic is still really rough. I think next draft that long/short vowels would be written like <sa sa-a sa-i sa-i-ja sa-u sa-u-va> /sa sa: si si: su su:/. Here /a/ is the inherent or deleted vowel and thus makes distinguishing diphthongs /ai au/ difficult without knowledge of the language. Long vowels may often be implicit, rather than written, as they are in many natural languages.

Edit: For example, /Cai/Ci/ /Cau/Cu/ would be written as <Ca-i> <Ca-u>. /Ca:i/ /Ca:u/ would be unambiguously <Ca-a-i> <Ca-a-u>.

[clawgrip]

I like seeing impenetrable scripts like this. Are you going to incorporate any logograms?

Have you designed the language yet, or is that secondary to the script itself? When I designed a complex script, the language or represented was a secondary consideration, so I understand well if that's what you're doing.

Looking forward to seeing some samples of the script itself.

[MoonRightRomantic]

I like seeing impenetrable scripts like this. Are you going to incorporate any logograms?

Have you designed the language yet, or is that secondary to the script itself? When I designed a complex script, the language or represented was a secondary consideration, so I understand well if that's what you're doing.

Looking forward to seeing some samples of the script itself.

Currently a spelling reform of Old Persian Cuneiform that removes the redundant syllabograms and thus unicode-compatible. My other conscript idea is reforming the Paleohispanic scripts by replacing the plosive syllabograms with rotational alphasyllabograms a la Aboriginal Syllabics.

I am more conscripter than conlanger. My outstanding attempt at colang was rewriting an accidental curse from Christopher Paolini's relex.

[clawgrip]

Oh, so you were not creating a new script, just reforming Old Persian? Because I'd like to see a completely new conscript that employs the rules you've set out.

[MoonRightRomantic]

Oh, so you were not creating a new script, just reforming Old Persian? Because I'd like to see a completely new conscript that employs the rules you've set out.

Omniglot alone has a massive number of conscripts (mostly alphabets), so IMO that feels like reinventing the wheel.

[clawgrip]

A conscripter who does not want to make a conscript because there are already a lot of them? I'm honestly a little confused!

[Keenir]

Oh, so you were not creating a new script, just reforming Old Persian? Because I'd like to see a completely new conscript that employs the rules you've set out.

Omniglot alone has a massive number of conscripts (mostly alphabets), so IMO that feels like reinventing the wheel.

And reforming scripts doesn't?

[MoonRightRomantic]

A conscripter who does not want to make a conscript because there are already a lot of them? I'm honestly a little confused!

Oh, so you were not creating a new script, just reforming Old Persian? Because I'd like to see a completely new conscript that employs the rules you've set out.

Omniglot alone has a massive number of conscripts (mostly alphabets), so IMO that feels like reinventing the wheel.

And reforming scripts doesn't?

What I mean is that designing graphemes from scratch would feel like reinventing the wheel, as opposed to adopting a script that already exists... like the Old Persian cuneiform that is already in Unicode.

[Keenir]

A conscripter who does not want to make a conscript because there are already a lot of them? I'm honestly a little confused!

Oh, so you were not creating a new script, just reforming Old Persian? Because I'd like to see a completely new conscript that employs the rules you've set out.

Omniglot alone has a massive number of conscripts (mostly alphabets), so IMO that feels like reinventing the wheel.

And reforming scripts doesn't?

What I mean is that designing graphemes from scratch would feel like reinventing the wheel,

wait, who said anything about doing something from scratch? that wasn't what the conversation thus far has been about.

as opposed to adopting a script that already exists... like the Old Persian cuneiform that is already in Unicode.

ah, then I apologize for misunderstanding/misreading your post here:

Currently a spelling reform of Old Persian Cuneiform that removes the redundant syllabograms and thus unicode-compatible. My other conscript idea is reforming the Paleohispanic scripts by replacing the plosive syllabograms with rotational alphasyllabograms a la Aboriginal Syllabics.

...emphasis my own.