Kryptonian writing/conscript from Man of Steel movie

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Gray Richardson
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Kryptonian writing/conscript from Man of Steel movie

Post by Gray Richardson »

So they apparently designed a Kryptonian language for the upcoming Man of Steel movie. Don't know if it will be spoken in the film or only written. But a fan has put out this breakdown of the Kryptonian writing system:

http://kryptonian.info/about/news-feed. ... -of-steel/

It's very pretty, if perhaps a little impractical for actually writing. And the characters are maybe a little too complex to be fast to read. But perhaps Kryptonian eye movement, perception & cognition speeds are different from those of humans. And they are very advanced technologically, so with keyboards or even voice recognition (or maybe brain interfacing?) their computers can type the characters easily, so handwriting may be entirely obsolete, except as a calligraphic art. Regardless, it's a beautiful script to look at and will undoubtedly look nice on the screen.

In an interview, I read David Goyer say that each instance of writing seen on screen will not be gibberish but will represent actual Kryptonian words that can be translated by those who are interested. (http://collider.com/david-s-goyer-man-o ... interview/)

Someone also put together this chart of the Kryptonian alphabet, although, technically it's an abugida. There are elements of the characters, vowel markings and an upper bar/overline that are not shown on the below chart. The webpage above explains in more detail.

Image

Image

Lastly, for fun, the movie folks have put up this page that will give you your name spelled in Kryptonian, assign you an ancestral house and display your ancestral shield complete with the glyph that represents your house:

http://glyphcreator.manofsteel.com/

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Re: Kryptonian writing/conscript from Man of Steel movie

Post by Anguipes »

Good lord, that transliteration chart is terrible. Or for the completely linguistically illiterate. :P

Better than the usual English cypher I guess, but aesthetically, I'm not sure. It feels like it was made to look handwritten without any thought of the practicalities - flipped characters are wholesale image flipped rather than subtly different based on hand/pen position, you need to write separate consonant and vowel lines, and the characters are so needlessly busy; you don't need half of those details to distinguish that many different characters. Conclusion: script designed by graphic designer. Secondary conclusion: considering my current project, I am a colossal hypocrite.
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Re: Kryptonian writing/conscript from Man of Steel movie

Post by Abi »

Looks like they used this:

http://www.alphabetsynthesis.com/

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Re: Kryptonian writing/conscript from Man of Steel movie

Post by clawgrip »

I assume the basis of their design was the Superman logo. Seems like they decided it's actually an alien letter, B, that just coincidentally looks like an S. Then they just made all the other letters curvy in a similar fashion to the S/B letter.

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Re: Kryptonian writing/conscript from Man of Steel movie

Post by Herr Dunkel »

X = Csh
sano wrote:
To my dearest Darkgamma,
http://www.dazzlejunction.com/greetings/thanks/thank-you-bear.gif
Sincerely,
sano

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Re: Kryptonian writing/conscript from Man of Steel movie

Post by Anguipes »

I'm having too much fun with that glyph creator, trying things like "queen", "xylophone", "Krypton"...
"It is quite certain, in particular, that I have always been insane." ~ Aleister Crowley

"Save us all from arrogant men/And all the causes they're for/I won't be righteous again/I'm not that sure any more." ~ Shades of Grey, Billy Joel

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Re: Kryptonian writing/conscript from Man of Steel movie

Post by Zontas »

Abi wrote:Looks like they used this:

http://www.alphabetsynthesis.com/
I tried that once. Wound up making a script that resembled a drunk Michael J. Fox's graffiti.
Hey there.

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Re: Kryptonian writing/conscript from Man of Steel movie

Post by Gray Richardson »

The linguist who designed the Kryptonian language for Man of Steel has been revealed as Christine Scheyer, a professor of linguistic anthropology at the University of British Columbia Okanagan.

There is a short youtube video up about her design of the Kryptonian language here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDnmNHKli_A

Also, here is a nice little article about her on the UBC website: http://news.ubc.ca/2013/07/04/a-mother- ... -of-steel/

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Re: Kryptonian writing/conscript from Man of Steel movie

Post by Gray Richardson »

There's apparently some poetry written on the walls of Krypton: http://www.empireonline.com/features/ma ... secrets/p4

Including the following quote or paraphrase from Joseph Campbell: 'We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.'

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Re: Kryptonian writing/conscript from Man of Steel movie

Post by Shm Jay »

It could be the printed form of the script, i.e. printed in books, computer screens, etc., and there is another handwritten script not displayed.

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Re: Kryptonian writing/conscript from Man of Steel movie

Post by Curlyjimsam »

Aren't Kryptonians possessed of various, you know, superpowers? Meaning that what may be impractical to us is not necessarily impractical to them.

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Re: Kryptonian writing/conscript from Man of Steel movie

Post by patiku »

No. Kryptonians manifest superpowers when exposed to the rays of a yellow star, but Rao is a red giant.

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