Kwamenese script family

[clawgrip]

Many years ago, when I first created my conworld I was not particularly serious about it and put in all sorts of real-world references for no particular reason. As time passed I decided to limit, and eventually remove as much of this influence as possible. One major problem though, was that I had created two scripts that were quite clearly being based on real-world scripts, but I can't bring myself to scrap them since they have been around for so long.

I decided to keep them, but I also felt like I should at least make some kind of handwave explanation for their existence. One of the two scripts is inspired by various Indic scripts, and the other is based on Southeast Asian scripts, meaning they both fall within the Brahmic family. In the conworld, these two cultures are quite close to each other geographically, so I decided to make an in-world script family. I created a parent script (Kwamenese) for these two, and purposely made it in some ways dissimilar to Brahmi except where it was impossible, thus making these scripts' resemblance to Brahmi akin to a massive coincidence.

Another script I had created many years ago (at least 16 years ago) for a region south of that is also an abugida, and with a combination of effort and luck, I was able to figure a way to fit this script into the family as well. With three scripts in the family, I decided I ought to make the family a little more extensive. There are now six "modern" scripts derived from this one proto-script, and I will most likely create others.

The first step I took after creating the parent script was to make four different regional scripts derived from the parent-script (Northern, Central, Southern, Western. In my first post I will show the historical scripts, namely Kwamenese and its four immediate descendants. Later on I will post some of the modern scripts.

Again, since the first two scripts that started this all were very clearly Brahmic, it's inevitable most of the scripts in this family will be Brahmic-looking to a greater or lesser extent. I have just decided to go with it and have fun with it.

Old Kwamenese Script:

I figured this script was mostly carved into rock, originally.

Old Northern Kwamenese Script:

The parent script of the Oksme, Fau, and Himmaswa-Fkeumgerswa scripts.

Old Central Kwamenese Script:

The parent script of the Fu and Gunda scripts.

Old Western Kwamenese Script:

The parent script of the Vradi script.

Old Southern Kwamenese Script:

The parent script of the Kadabac script.

I want to provide some written samples, but I haven't even determined exactly which languages some of these scripts were designed to write. I may just write some modern languages in old scripts to give an idea of what they look like.

[clawgrip]

Here are a couple samples of the scripts in writing. I haven't finished the all the vowel ligatures of the Old Western script font, so I can't write a sample text.

[WeepingElf]

ROCK'N'ROLL! These scripts look totally awesome and realistic!

[maıráí]

These are lovely. I definitely wouldn't mind seeing them more around the ZBB.

[clawgrip]

Thanks for the comments. I enjoy making scripts as much as languages, so I have made quite a few. I still haven't figured out which languages exactly would be written in those scripts yet, since they are medial forms between the ancient and modern ones.

Fu Script (1999)
My oldest document on the Fu language dates to Oct 31, 1999, so I guess I created the script around the same time. It was one of the two scripts that eventually inspired me to make this script family. It is based on features from a variety of Indian scripts, and I think it's quite apparent in the appearance of the script. There are a few ligatures for the vowel-silencing mark, but since the Fu language has no closed syllables that end in anything other than /n/, and since syllable-final /n/ has its own letter, these ligatures are not used in Fu.

This script is a descendant of the Old Central Kwamenese script.

[clawgrip]

I'd also like to see the phonetic script, fkeumgerswa

Fkeumgerswa Script, aka Himma Script (c. 2000)
This script is quite heavily based on Southeast Asian scripts, and its incongruence with a world that is not supposed to have any connection with Earth was what inspired me to create the Kwamenese script. The only reason I don't scrap this script is because I spent so much time creating it, and I kind of like it. But there's no denying that it is clearly a Southeast Asian script. In my conworld, it is a descendent of the Old North Kwamenese script.

The rules of this script are quite complex, and heavily based on Khmer script. Like the Old Northern Kwamenese script, it employs subscripts to indicate conjunct consonants, and it employs duplicates of almost every letter in order to determine the pronunciation of the vowels. In cases where a duplicate is not available, a " mark is employed instead. I have used the characters for ka and kor to indicate the dual realization of vowel signs.

[clawgrip]

K'adabac script (c. 1998)
This is honestly not one of my favourite scripts, probably because I made it so long ago, when I had a little less knowledge of scripts in general, but it was still fun for me to finally make a font of it after nearly 15 years of it being bound to paper. The script was not designed with any intention of being related to any other script, but after conceiving of the Kwamenese script family, I managed to fit it in through a combination of creative script evolution and the occasional creation, deletion, and reassignment of certain glyphs. Both the script and the language have been ignored for the past 11 years or so, but working on this script family made me want to revive this neglected language.

Anyway, the script is a descendant of the Old Southern Kwamenese script. Here is the script and a text sample:


I've come up with a handwritten version as well, which is pretty ugly, but a little more naturalistic.

[clawgrip]

Vradi Script (2013)
I invented this one quite recently. It is meant for a fairly standard SAE language I recently created. It is descended from the Old Western Script and has a high number of irregular vowel ligatures (indicated in orange).



/h/ has disappeared from the language, but its former position is still indicated by the orthography.

[WeepingElf]

Rock'n'roll, once again.

[Gray Richardson]

Bravo, the scripts look amazing. Well done!