Gary Shannon wrote:
> I was playing around with letter grids this morning
> and stumbled onto a new way to generate roots for your
> conlang.
>
> Write out the alphabet across the page and down the
> left hand column. Graph paper works best.
>
> In the first row write the alphabet in scrambled
> order.
> In the second row, shift that scrambled alphabet one
> to the right.
> Do the same in the thrid row, fourth row, and so on to
> the 26th row.
>
> The first few rows should look like this:
>
> ABCD EFGH IJKL MNOP QRST UVWX YZ
> ----------------------------------
> A gcma fslz itxr ydbe hwnq vkpu jo
> B ogcm afsl zitx rydb ehwn qvkp uj
> C jogc mafs lzit xryd behw nqvk pu
> D ujog cmaf slzi txry dbeh wnqv kp
>
> E pujo gcma fslz itxr ydbe hwnq vk
> F kpuj ogcm afsl zitx rydb ehwn qv
> G vkpu jogc mafs lzit xryd behw nq
> H qvkp ujog cmaf slzi txry dbeh wn
>
> .. and so on ...
>
> Now take the word you need a root for and look up a
> single letter in the table for each letter pair in the
> word.
Interesting. It sort of reminds me of the tables I've seen for deriving
musical materials from a twelve-tone row.