Re: Tesawa update: text in Balalatu alphabet online

On 09/06 23:03  Thomas Leigh wrote:

> I'm finding this really interesting because as I recall, I created the
> Balalatu letters via the old "doodle in the notebook and pick out the
> shapes I like" method; I certainly took no conscious design or influence
> from any existing script. So it's fascinating to read what other people
> think it looks like!
>
If you check out http://www.omniglot.com/writing/egyptian_demotic.htm or
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/coptic.htm then you might notice that
the Balalatu letter /S/ looks like the Coptic letter shai.  My reading
of The World's Writing Systems tells me that this is the first of the
letters in the Coptic alphabet that was preserved from Egyptian Demotic.
That's what jumped out at me.

> > If this is an alphabet going spare, then I would like to continue
> > playing with it and see if I can adapt it.  The consonants corrolate
> > closely between both languages, but 2.0 has 13 vowels rather than 6.
>
> Please, Andrew, be my guest! I'm very flattered that you like it enough
> to want to play with it! And if you do, please share your results,
> either here or privately. I'd be very interested to see what you do with
> it.
>
I have stuck the alphabet jpg up as my wallpaper in X so I can study it
while I'm working on my computer.  There are certain problems I have to
resolve.  2.0 does not have /f/ or /x/; /z/ and /Z/ are allophones of
/s/ and /sj/; there are four extra vowels /I/, /U/, /O/ and /Q/; both
/a/ and /Q/ can be short and long.

Hmmmm....

- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus                         hobbit@griffler.co.nz
alias Mungo Foxburr of Loamsdown
http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/homepage.html

It was a species which often considered itself to be, basically, a race
of divinely inspired toolmakers; any intelligent entity from Arcturus
would instantly have perceived them to be, basically, a race of
impassioned after-dinner speech-makers.
                           - Walter Miller Jr, A Canticle for Leibowitz