Re: Scripts

> > Just wanted to ask a few questions?
> >
> > How many of you have scripts?
I DO! Many of them, but for the moment I'm working on the 4th incarnation of the
alphambet for Silindion, and the 2nd incarnation of the alphabet for Nindic

> > How many of you use diacriticals as vowels in your scripts?
In Silindion the vowels are all full letters. But if the same vowel occurs in two
consecutive syllables, then a little dot is put under the consonant. That
really was a bad way of explaining it..but I'll give an example:

the word: I see you <tilisili>

would be written:
  til`.s~il.
(except the ` would be over the L, the . would be under and the ~ would be under the s

This shows that the vowel that follows the L is the same as the vowel that follows
the T. But since two dotted consonants cant follow each other, the I after the
S is written in full. The ` means that the vowel is stressed, and usually it's
put over the full vowel letter when that vowel is not the penultimate, but over
consonants it just means that the dotted vowel is stressed. The ~ indicates
"lenition".

> > How many of you have null letters (letters that don't represent a sound)
> > to deal with the problem of diphthongs / multiple vowels per consonant?
I dont have null letters to deal with diphthongs or multiple vowels per
consonant, but I have null letters for the same reason English has gh's, that
is....the script was created at an earlier time and subsequent sound change has
wrought a certain amount of havoc.

Some examples are in order:

The word: <aui> "it barked" /`a:wi/ comes from an original *aka^wai. This became
/axoe:/ in Old Silindion and /ahui/ in Middle Silindion, where the H was only
pronounced sporadically. The writing system was invented around the time of Old
Silindion, or just before then, so the word <aui> is written: <ahoe-> where -
indicates that <e> is/was pronounced /e/.

Another example is the word <i> "the" which comes from
*ye:. This became /yi/ in Pre-Old Silindion and is still written <yi>. Another
example of the same silent <y> is the word <yema> pronounced /E:ma/

Then there's a few random words like <or> /o:r/ "terror" and <elea> /E:lea/
"golden" which are spelled <gor> and <ge`le-a> respectively.

Note that all of these sounds, /y/, /g/ and /h/, still do exist in Silindion, and
when they are pronounced other letters representing /y/, /g/ and /h/ are used.

Elliott Lash