Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

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sangi39
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by sangi39 »

MoonRightRomantic wrote:
sangi39 wrote:There's not much of an alphabetic element in there, annoyingly, but I'm sort of struggling to apply what I'm thinking about to a language I don't really know [:P] Eventually, though, you might be able to use "hand" as for o and "world" for v given the right circumstances, but I wouldn't think those would be their only reading, or even their main ones.
You are doing great. Egyptian uses the same logic as charades. Additional phonograms are used to clarify context just as you described. The same symbol could serve as a phonogram, logogram or semantogram depending on the context.

I would recommend buying a highly rated book on Hieroglyphics from Amazon, Barnes&Noble or iTunes. Unlike High Valyrian, there isn't a convenient wiki anywhere that explains how to learn it.
Oh, don't worry, I've been learning Ancient Egyptian on and off for about 20 years, lol. I've got a fair few books scattered around the place [:P] It formed the basis for a third of my BA dissertation as well, but I think I've forgotten a bit since then.

Anyway, yeah, I don't think you can come up with a suitable "alphabetic" High Valyrian logographic script without a) having a fairly detailed knowledge of the language (or at least some decent resources) and b) working it out step by step. It's all well and god saying vala "man" might stand in as v, u, etc., but why should that be the case?



Oh, and as I've mentioned before, I cannot recommend Clawgrip's Naduta highly enough. It's familiar if you've looked at Ancient Egyptian before, but the explanations and how it developed are as good as the stylistic awesomeness of the script itself [:)]
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Just one time.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by clawgrip »

Thank you. If you're curious, here is how the syllabaries that descended from Naduta developed coda consonant signs. The Classical Naduta script had a few signs that (frequently) represented single-syllable suffixes. It's a little complicated, but here are the details:

Some objective case suffixes are -h or some variation of this, such as -he or -ih. This is represented by the character for "skin", uh- Image. Eventually this case ending (but not the one for "skin") got optionally simplified to Image.

The plural sign (Image) is an ideograph that frequently represents -r, or some variation such as -re or -ur.

The animate objective case suffix -y or -ey was written with the character for "corn; maize", yir- Image, which eventually received a mandatory simplification to Image.

The known nominative case is -n or some variation such as -ne or -un. It is written with the character for sickle, n- Image.

Classical Naduta has a fairly consistent set of phonetic complements (which ignore the coda consonant of the words they originally represented, except uh- above), and for people who needed to keep business records or what have you but did not receive the education necessary to learn all of the logograms, syllabic writing began to occur using the most common phonetic complements, and the Naduta common script was born. This script employed the four signs above to mark the coda consonants h, r, y, and n, and adapted one other character to represent coda s, the only other permissible coda consonant in Naduta. The use of independent coda consonant signs having been established, the (so-far two) descendants of Naduta common script developed more of these as needed. Nandut uses a combination of unique coda consonant signs and a vowel silencing mark, while Tuchuqfa uses unique coda consonant signs for every possible consonant.

Hope this will give you some inspiration.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by lsd »

A little too alphabetisch for my taste... It's not my favorite...
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by clawgrip »

If you don't like it, that's fine, but I must admit I'm a little confused. Are you talking about the classical Naduta logography, or the syllabaries descended from it? Classical Naduta is not alphabetic at all (aside from rebus writing for foreign names), and Nandut and Tuchuqfa function nearly identically to Japanese kana, including separate signs for coda consonants. What aspects specifically do you find too alphabetic?
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by sangi39 »

clawgrip wrote:If you don't like it, that's fine, but I must admit I'm a little confused. Are you talking about the classical Naduta logography, or the syllabaries descended from it? Classical Naduta is not alphabetic at all (aside from rebus writing for foreign names), and Nandut and Tuchuqfa function nearly identically to Japanese kana, including separate signs for coda consonants. What aspects specifically do you find too alphabetic?
I'll admit I was a little too confused there as well, in not being clear as to whether "I don't like it" referred to Naduta or to a proposed development for a High Valyrian script.

Either way, it's also fairly nonconstructive [:P]
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That they all still believe in you.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by lsd »

I spoke of the naduta as it appears in the link above ...
Aesthetically only, it is more to be compared to the demotic than to the hieroglyphic egyptian ...
As long as looking for a hieroglyphic writing ...
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by clawgrip »

No, you didn't say anything about aesthetics, you said it was too alphabetic. I asked you to elaborate, and you responded with incomprehensible irrelevance.

If you don't like the script that's fine, it won't be the first or last time I made something people don't like, but at least be consistent when you comment.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by MoonRightRomantic »

clawgrip wrote:Hope this will give you some inspiration.
I think so. Valyrian has a vocabulary of a few hundred words. The first logograms would develop from pictograms for common concepts. The rebus principle would be used to represent other words. Eventually inflections would be represented in writing. This will be very time consuming to develop.
clawgrip wrote:No, you didn't say anything about aesthetics, you said it was too alphabetic. I asked you to elaborate, and you responded with incomprehensible irrelevance.

If you don't like the script that's fine, it won't be the first or last time I made something people don't like, but at least be consistent when you comment.
He or she may not be a fluent speaker of English.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by lsd »

MoonRightRomantic wrote:He or she may not be a fluent speaker of English.
I'm not... I speak English like a conlang...
clawgrip wrote:No, you didn't say anything about aesthetics
If I spoke of my taste, I could only refer to my sense of aesthetics ...
clawgrip wrote:If you don't like the script that's fine
It's fine, but... a little too alphabetisch looking for a first choice of hieroglyphic writing... for my taste... Some of yours are more hieroglyphics "at first sight"...
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by clawgrip »

Well, my original question remains: "What aspects specifically do you find too alphabetic?"
lsd wrote:Some of yours are more hieroglyphics "at first sight"...
If by "alphabetisch" what is meant is that the script has an integrated phonetic component, then I have to point out that every functional logographic script has a phonetic component, either via rebus writing or distinct phonetic complements, even Tangut. There is no purely ideographic logography. I feel that either lsd is unfamiliar of how real-world logographic scripts work, or lsd's ideal is a highly inconvenient, Tangut-to-the-extreme-style logography that is entirely devoid of phonetic indicators.
lsd wrote:a little too alphabetisch looking
If what is meant that it visually it appears to be an alphabet, I can only say that I don't think that's the case. But then if it's simply a matter of visual preference, there's little else for me to say.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by lsd »

clawgrip wrote:Well, my original question remains: "What aspects specifically do you find too alphabetic?"
I give you a step-by-step:
MoonRightRomantic is looking for a Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian...
MoonRightRomantic want to use pictograms in it...
We talked about Egyptian writing...
Hieroglyphic is the way MoonRightRomantic thought about, demotic seems far from it...
I thought Classical Naduta far from it, as far than demotic, so close to coptic alphabet...
I feel that either lsd is unfamiliar of how real-world logographic scripts work
I know how natural logograpic writing works, but we are talking about artificial language...
The constraints from people who needed to keep business records or did not receive the education necessary to learn all of the logograms, can be forgotten, and as I said in page 1: With constructed language, it is not unthinkable to recover the purity of a totally ideographic language without any phonogram added ...
The languages so called philosophical are an interesting attempt of it...
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by clawgrip »

If you believe the Naduta script to be similar to Demoting, then it seems clear that you don't understand how it works, because it's not alphabetic or especially more phonetic than Egyptian. That may be my own failure to describe it properly.
Last edited by clawgrip on 02 Feb 2017 23:53, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by sangi39 »

lsd wrote: I know how natural logograpic writing works, but we are talking about artificial language...
The constraints from people who needed to keep business records or did not receive the education necessary to learn all of the logograms, can be forgotten, and as I said in page 1: With constructed language, it is not unthinkable to recover the purity of a totally ideographic language without any phonogram added ...
The languages so called philosophical are an interesting attempt of it...
I wouldn't say that's the case with High Valyrian. Through both George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels and the television adaption "Game of Thrones", High Valyrian has an associated culture and, barring things like magic and dragons, GRRM largely seems to be attempting something close to a world with a similar history to that of our world. A purely ideographic system might be an interesting concept for a "non-naturalistic" conlangs, especially the various forms of philosophical conlangs, but High Valyrian is more or less a fairly standard attempt at a naturalistic a priori conlang, and David J. Peterson, who currently works on the language (as well as Dothraki), seems to be aiming for that (IIRC, DJP favours this sort of conlang quite highly).

That's not to say that a purely ideographic script couldn't be derived for High Valyrian, or any other language for that matter, but it doesn't really fall in line with the intentions of either DJP or, more specifically, MoonRightRomantic who mentioned an intention to create an Egyptian-style alphebeto-logography in line with DJP's idea.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by clawgrip »

I think I figured out the confusion between lsd and I regarding how alphabetic Naduta is or isn't.

You quoted me as follows:
...[for] people who needed to keep business records or what have you but did not receive the education necessary to learn all of the logograms...
but left out what came immediately after:
...syllabic writing began to occur using the most common phonetic complements, and the Naduta common script was born.
My post above showed how certain suffixes were represented in Classical Naduta, and then how those glyphs were in turn adapted to mark coda consonants in the child scripts of Naduta, but not Classical Naduta itself. In Classical Naduta, those signs are still very much tied to the morphemes they represent. Classical Naduta is logographic, while Common Naduta (Vulgar Naduta? Demonic Naduta?) is syllabic.

lsd, I suspect you interpreted everything in that post to be describing classical Naduta, when I was describing the diachronics of its very phonetic descendants.

For reference:
Kuyih ruisdaih gi khisagu.
"I will teach you many mysteries."

Classical Naduta (logographic):
Image
many-UKNW.OBJ mystery-PL-UKNW.OBJ REBUS-ABL/house show-give-1

Common Naduta (syllabic):
Image
ku-yi-h-ru-i-s-da-i-h-gi-khi-sa-gu

But perhaps this is getting off topic.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by lsd »

Forgive me but there is no confusion...
Demotic is logographic as hieroglyph is, its aspect is just so cursive it seems alphabetic...
The parallel I did is just what I said, naruda aspect seems realy alphabetic, no more...
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I ever think conkang as real language for real world, naked before any evolution... It's just my choice...
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by MoonRightRomantic »

Valyrian graphemes probably underwent a transition into increasingly abstract forms due to handwriting iterations. That would be why the Volantese script has the aesthetic it does, since it was probably derived from Demotic Valyrian or whatever the correct name would be.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by sangi39 »

MoonRightRomantic wrote:Valyrian graphemes probably underwent a transition into increasingly abstract forms due to handwriting iterations. That would be why the Volantese script has the aesthetic it does, since it was probably derived from Demotic Valyrian or whatever the correct name would be.
And that's not exactly unlikely. Chinese characters and Sumerian Cuneiform changes massively from what you might consider "pictographic" to incredibly abstract over the centuries. Egyptian Hieroglyphs maintained their stereotypical "pictographic" style due, I think, from it being predominantly carved into rocks. Once it was transferred to papyrus and used in more everyday circumstances it fairly quickly became increasingly cursive (whence Hieratic). I can't remember Mayan Hieroglyphs too well, but while they never really became "cursive", some glyphs lost their pictographic nature when condensed while others became highly varied in terms of additional flourishes from scribe to scribe.

That's mostly a question of medium, writing implement and use, though, and that could have a large impact on what High Valyrian Hieroglyphs might look like, and even whether there was just one form of them.
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So close your eyes once more and once more believe
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by clawgrip »

So, "too alphabetisch" means using abstract glyphs rather than obvious pictographs?
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by lsd »

It doesn't have precise meaning, on purpose...
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by sangi39 »

lsd wrote:It doesn't have precise meaning, on purpose...
I think I'm going to request that this line of discussion be halted. It's not going anywhere and I think this post just made it impossible to go forward without people getting annoyed (following on from "I meant it looks too cursive" itself following on from "it looks too alphabetic" this is starting to look a bit like an "I just don't like it" comment that's failing to have much of an explicitly honest basis).

Obviously if MoonRightRomantic wants to keep discussing the topic of the OP (and other members of course if they feel the same), then go right ahead, but this isn't really adding anything to the thread and it seems that it's starting to irritate people which is never a good sign.
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
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