Now trying to decide on a Tech abjad/alphasyllabry....

I've already come up with Latin, Cyrillic and Arabic orthographies for Tech,
but now I've decided to give it its own script, which is an adaptation of a
traditional 22-letter Semitic script, probably Hebrew/Aramaic (Jewish
Techians already use Hebrew), but with a LOT of modifications. A distinctive
feature is the need to mark palatization, labialization, fortition (dagesh),
and whether the consonant is followed by a vowel or by schwa/no vowel.

There are thirty-six basic consonants. Palatal and labiovelar markers
multiply that by three, the fortis/geminate marker by two, giving a total of
216 theoretical consonant phonemes. There are six vowels, but only two vowel
diacritics: /a/ and /@/ (very Northwest Caucasian like!), while the other
vowels /e/-/i/ and /o/-/u/ are indicated with a mater lectionis - a
semivowel consonant with no vowel, either /j/ or /w/. (The diphthongs /ai/
and /au/ have to be written differently, probably as <aj@> or <aw@>; /ei/
and /ou/ would <ajj@> and <aww@>.)

So now to the more difficult and creative part: the forms of the 36 letters,
three featural diacritics, and the two vowel markers (schwa is unmarked; a
virama/"kill" sign marks no vowel). I might use Phoenician letters or South
Semitic letters, with a new diacritic or modification as a "shift sign" to
get /S/ instead of /s/, /J/ instead of /n/, /p>/ instead of /p/, etc. I had
a South Semitic-based alphabet with full vowels once, but abandoned it (some
of you saw it, maybe). Only the Techians that settled in East Africa would
be using that; most Techians ended up in the Caucasus, so I'm leaning
towards either something derived from imperial Aramaic, or Syriac. Syriac
would work, since a quarter of Techians are Syriac Orthodox Christians
(two-fifths are Shi'ah Muslims making up the largest religious group). This
would only be used for Standard Tech, not the various vernaculars which may
or may not be written at all.

My goal: a Semitic-based script, still written right-to-left, with a
"Western" design like Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and Armenian today. Something
like Karmeli (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/karmeli.htm), a hybrid of
Latin and Hebrew, designed to write Hebrew, English, Yiddish or German
instead of any conlang (it's based mostly on Latin however, and is written
left-to-right).

[I just got an idea for a conlang/conculture I'll surely never finish... a
mix of North African immigrants that settled in Mexico and the Caribbean,
split between the Muslim and Catholic faiths, speaking Arabic with Berber,
Mozarabic and Spanish influence....]