Naduta language and script
Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2013 11:12 am
I got enough of the script together to make a post about it in case anyone's interested.
Generally all the languages I create are set in the same conworld, and there is an old language of mine that needs to be revamped and made less dumb. I also wanted to make a second logographic script. I decided to combine the two ideas and make a logographic script for that language. However, I already have a logographic script that was specifically designed for the same language I use it for. This time I wanted to make a script suited for one language, and then apply it to write a completely different language, like Akkadian or Japanese, hopefully making a big mess in the process. But before I can borrow the script, I need to make the original language the script will be borrowed from.
This language is not supposed to be particularly wild or obscure or anything, just a sort of placeholder language with some elements that will make the script harder to adapt. That said, I still kind of like it.
Noun basics
I have enough of the script made that I can show you how the nouns work.
The Naduta language has two numbers (singular and plural), three genders (animate, "known", "unknown"), and two cases (nominative and objective).
The animate gender is for things that move on their own. Known and unknown are somewhat random, but known tends toward ideas and concepts, and countable nouns.
These things are all marked on nouns with suffixes. The singular, vowel-stem suffixes are marked with phonetic glyphs ta, ye, in, uh, un, uh.
In the known and unknown genders, there is some phonetic variation among consonant-stem nouns, but these are not indicated phonetically and are written identically to the regular forms:
Plural is indicated only through the use of a plural sign. Even though plural is phonetically different from the singular, the phonetic signs are employed ideographically to indicate the various suffixes:
Of course this works for nouns with irregular suffixes as well:
Just a simple outline of nouns for now.
Script
Most of the glyphs I have used so far are simple pictographic glyphs. Two glyphs used so far, GE "rain" and UH "skin; hide" are compound glyphs because they involve two semantic elements. GE is made up of the glyph YI "water" and a curved line indicating downward movement. UH indicates an animal hide (now used for YHAN "covering") and a cross, as of something being cut.
Some words employ phonetic complements in addition to semantic elements. These are often but not always raised slightly above the writing line.
SAY "new" is a combination of U "walk; run" + TREY "inside" + SA "land" with SA acting as the phonetic complement
THU "picture" is a combination of NUR "eye" + TI "surround; enclose" + THU "tooth" with THU acting as the phonetic complement
BU "I" is a combination of BA "person" and BUN "lizard" with BUN acting as the phonetic complement
As you can see, in these cases, the phonetic complement has been raised above the writing line. Sometimes this does not happen though:
KITHI "sew; stitch; knit" is a combination of the semantic elements APAN "manipulate" + WHIR "peg; nail; needle" + UN "rope; cord; thread" (seen before as the unknown nominative suffix) and the phonetic complement THI "flame" which is itself a compound of RUH "fire" and GEN "small"
As you can see, the phonetic complement THI sits on the same line as the semantic glyphs.
This is just the beginning so far. The script is still in its infancy, but I have some verb stuff done as well.
Generally all the languages I create are set in the same conworld, and there is an old language of mine that needs to be revamped and made less dumb. I also wanted to make a second logographic script. I decided to combine the two ideas and make a logographic script for that language. However, I already have a logographic script that was specifically designed for the same language I use it for. This time I wanted to make a script suited for one language, and then apply it to write a completely different language, like Akkadian or Japanese, hopefully making a big mess in the process. But before I can borrow the script, I need to make the original language the script will be borrowed from.
This language is not supposed to be particularly wild or obscure or anything, just a sort of placeholder language with some elements that will make the script harder to adapt. That said, I still kind of like it.
Noun basics
I have enough of the script made that I can show you how the nouns work.
The Naduta language has two numbers (singular and plural), three genders (animate, "known", "unknown"), and two cases (nominative and objective).
The animate gender is for things that move on their own. Known and unknown are somewhat random, but known tends toward ideas and concepts, and countable nouns.
These things are all marked on nouns with suffixes. The singular, vowel-stem suffixes are marked with phonetic glyphs ta, ye, in, uh, un, uh.
In the known and unknown genders, there is some phonetic variation among consonant-stem nouns, but these are not indicated phonetically and are written identically to the regular forms:
Plural is indicated only through the use of a plural sign. Even though plural is phonetically different from the singular, the phonetic signs are employed ideographically to indicate the various suffixes:
Of course this works for nouns with irregular suffixes as well:
Just a simple outline of nouns for now.
Script
Most of the glyphs I have used so far are simple pictographic glyphs. Two glyphs used so far, GE "rain" and UH "skin; hide" are compound glyphs because they involve two semantic elements. GE is made up of the glyph YI "water" and a curved line indicating downward movement. UH indicates an animal hide (now used for YHAN "covering") and a cross, as of something being cut.
Some words employ phonetic complements in addition to semantic elements. These are often but not always raised slightly above the writing line.
SAY "new" is a combination of U "walk; run" + TREY "inside" + SA "land" with SA acting as the phonetic complement
THU "picture" is a combination of NUR "eye" + TI "surround; enclose" + THU "tooth" with THU acting as the phonetic complement
BU "I" is a combination of BA "person" and BUN "lizard" with BUN acting as the phonetic complement
As you can see, in these cases, the phonetic complement has been raised above the writing line. Sometimes this does not happen though:
KITHI "sew; stitch; knit" is a combination of the semantic elements APAN "manipulate" + WHIR "peg; nail; needle" + UN "rope; cord; thread" (seen before as the unknown nominative suffix) and the phonetic complement THI "flame" which is itself a compound of RUH "fire" and GEN "small"
As you can see, the phonetic complement THI sits on the same line as the semantic glyphs.
This is just the beginning so far. The script is still in its infancy, but I have some verb stuff done as well.