Re: writing system

Hallo!

On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 13:24:41 -0800,
bob thornton <arcanesock@...> wrote:

> --- Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> wrote:
>
> > Hallo!
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > Yes, this is indeed a drawback of Tengwar.  Most of
> > the letters look
> > all too similar.  This is something not easy to
> > avoid when designing
> > featural alphabets.  Most of my earlier designs for
> > featural alphabets
> > suffered from the same problem.
> >
> > Greetings,
> >
> > Jörg.
> >
>
> I once did a featural script, but put all the
> 'features' as diacritics. Including vowel features. It
> was interesting, and not hard to read for me.
Interesting that you mention that.  In the Old Albic alphabet, there
is a single vowel letter (resembling the Roman letter "o") to the
right of which up to three diacritics are placed that indicate
vowel features: a vertical stroke for [+open], a horseshoe-like
squiggle for [+front] and a curl opening to the upper right
(a bit like a little capital "G") for [+round].  The features of the
seven Old Albic vowels are:

        a e i o ø u y
_____________________

[open]  + + - + + - -
[front] - + + - + - +
[round] - - - + + + +
_____________________

The [front] and [round] signs also occur in larger versions as
independent letters, representing the semivowels /j/ and /w/,
respectively.

At this point, I'll try to describe the whole system.  I unfortunatly
don't have an image file at hand that shows the glyphs, let alone
a font.

The most basic letters are the three stop letters |p|, |t|, |c| (/k/).
The letter |p| is a horizontal stroke with a short stroke extending
to the bottom right from the left end, forming a harpoon-like hook.
The letter |t| is a horizontal stroke with a short cross-stroke
near the left end: +--.  The letter |c| is a lower-case Roman "k"
turned 90 degrees clockwise.  Note that all three of these letters
consist of a horizontal "backbone" with a "head" of distinctive shape
at the left end of it.

The voiced stop letters |b|, |d|, |g| are rounded versions of the same
(in the case of |d|, the cross-stroke is curved such that the ends
of it point to the left).  The fricative letters |ph|, |th| and |ch|
are like |p|, |t|, |c| with a cross-stroke near the right end.
Adding a third cross-stroke to |th| gives |s|; the letter |h| is
a horizontal line with a single cross-stroke near the right end.

So far the obstruents.  The nasals |m|, |n|, |ñ| (/N/) are like |b|,
|d|, |g| but with the right ends curled upwards.  The liquids and
semivowels are derived thus: |v| (/w/) is |b| minus the "backbone",
i.e. the curl opening to the upper right described above; similarly,
|j| is |g| minus the backbone (the horseshoe described above), and
|r| is |d| minus the backbone (like an inverted Roman "c").  The
letter |l| resembles the digit "3" (both arcs are round).  All the
letters align to the left in lines running from bottom to top,
with the lines following each other from left to right.

The result is a mix of angular and (more prominent) rounded shapes,
somewhere in the middle between Tengwar and Mkhedruli, but vertical.
I hope you got some impression of what the Old Albic script looks like.

Greetings,

Jörg.

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