These writing systems are the ones I’ve used to write the Xalu translation of ‘Oldtale‘, which is shown below. For some of the transliterations, the Xalu phonetics have been slightly changed to fit the writing system.
I’ve also made some other writing systems.
leluiv
weieidiviv, skelu kapa moiosem. keltomon, veimon.
oen boav yodn skeluem, toi yodaiv caid. heikapalux.
oen heisik skelu hez dam, yai yulisalezux moidoix heiwa.
skelu moid hiqumiq.
Kaltol
The idea behind Kaltol was to design a script that was suited to being written with a broad-edge calligraphy pen, with no letters that required a switch of stroke direction mid-curve. Kaltol is an abugida with an inherent ‘e’ that comes before the consonant; that is, the bare symbol for ‘t’ is read as ‘et’. Other vowels, plus a mark for a null (absent) vowel, are written as diacritics below the consonant.
Unlike most of my orthographies, Kaltol has capital letters! Capitals extend below the baseline, and vowels can often be written inside them, rather than below.
Righto
Like many people, I happen to be right-handed. Righto has the very simple goal of being easy and comfortable for me to write by hand, and in this goal it succeeded pretty well. I find it pleasant to use. It’s partially cursive, with all vowels written as diacritics. (As is default in my writing systems, the ‘x’ is pronounced as ‘sh’.)
Lap
My first attempt at evolving a writing system from pictograms. It was interesting, and it turned out okay I guess. It’s an abugida, with syllable-final consonants written smaller and connected to the previous symbol.
Lis
Lis! My second attempt at evolving a writing system from pictograms. The process was much simpler and much faster, and I like the result a lot more. The letter categories are partly about the meaning of the original pictogram, and partly about the sound of the letters. All sung letters (vowels) are noted with diacritics, except for the inherent A.
Slaiss
Ah, Slaiss. I wanted to write ‘Leluiv’ in one more script, to finish the poster, but it had to fit in the squareish space that was left. I also wanted to make a writing system that used papercutting. Et voilà: Slaiss.
Slaiss (rhymes with ice) is cut into three layers of paper of contrasting colors. The top layer encodes vowels, the middle layer onset consonants, and the bottom layer coda consonants. It’s meant for a language that has very limited coda consonants and onset consonant clusters; it’s not well suited to English, for example, although there is a dummy ‘vowel’ that can be used to write non-native consonant clusters.
Each word is written using syllable characters in a squareish widdershins pattern, starting in the upper left quadrant and (if longer than four syllables) spiraling outward. There are a few different styles for writing sequences of words – narrow style, for narrow strips of paper, is linear; phrase style, for slightly wider paper, clusters words into phrases and writes each phrase in a spiral. Page style is for regular sheets of paper and simply continues the spiral of words to fill the page. ‘Leluiv’ is written in page style.
The relevant directions for syllables are down (in the direction of writing), up, in (roughly towards the word center, orthogonal to up-down), and out. For example, the vowels A and O are the same except that A points down and O up; I and U are the same except that I points out and U in. All consonants and vowels are based on syllable direction, except for the second letters of consonant clusters, which go lengthwise along or across the space left by the first consonant. If a consonant is of the ‘in’ type, for example, it is cut along the inner edge of its next-layer-up shape.
Punctuation is outside the syllables and makes use of all three layers. The ~comma equivalent is simply a line linking one word to the next. Most other punctuation lines the leading edge of the final syllable. Paragraph enders (a top-level square X shape, or a longer X for a bigger break) take up as much space as a word. There is a starting symbol, one per page, that takes up the space of one syllable: it points down (to indicate the direction of writing) and is modified to indicate a deasil word arrangement. This start symbol takes the inverse punctuation of whatever the next punctuation mark is; it’s left unpunctuated if the next mark is a ~comma.
I like to have some sort of vaguely coherent context for my writing systems to exist in; therefore, Slaiss is the writing system of aliens who have very sharp claws that they can use with great precision. In the area where Slaiss developed, there’s a kind of tree with bark that’s easy to harvest and that naturally comes in three loosely-attached layers of different colors. The paper or bark was typically rotated around a lot to make each cut more convenient, which eventually became part of the direction of writing.
Lacking claws, myself, I used colored paper and an x-acto knife to write out ‘Leluiv’.
Zup
Like Kaltol, I wanted to design a script for a broad-edge calligraphy pen; this time, I also made sure it was distinctly different from Kaltol. I like it just as much. Zup is nearly an alphabet; it has full symbols for each of its letters except U and I, which are written as diacritics whether they follow a consonant or form a diphthong with A, E, or O. When a Q, D, or B follows a non-left-slanting letter, it’s written without its top curve.
