Naduta language and script

[clawgrip]

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.

[Morrígan]

do like

[WeepingElf]

do like

+1

[clawgrip]

Thanks. I'm trying to think of ways of making this script unwieldy and less straightforward. I'm having fun making it fairly pictographic, which is something I have not done before to this extent in a script.

[masako]

do like

+1

x 47

[Linguist Wannabe]

I know you don't need to describe this language in that much detail (since you are mainly making it as the source of a script). But it would still be good to see a phonology of it, since without it some things are unclear.

Are there prenasalised stops? There seem to be since you you have hyphenated <rinta> as <ri-nta>. And also
is the sound that you romanised as <th> an aspirated stop /tʰ/, or a dental fricative /θ/?

[clawgrip]

You're right, I totally forgot.

Code: Select all

Consonants:
             stops              nasals      trills/etc. fric   approximants
             asp    unvoc  voc  unvoc  voc  reg   stop         unvoc  voc
labial       pʰ      p      b     m̥     m                       w̥      w
dental/etc.  tʰ      t      d     n̥     n    r~ɾ~l  t͡ɾ    s      j̊      j
velar        kʰ      k      ɡ                            x     

Vowels:
             i   u
             æ   ɑ

The Romanization is pretty straightforward:
labial: ph, p, b, mh, m, wh, w
dental/etc.: th, t, d, nh, n, r, tr, s, yh, y
velar: kh, k, g, h
vowels: i u e a

Any consonant can occur initially. Final consonants are limited to n, r, s, y, h. No clusters are allowed except /tr/, which I have simply classified as a phoneme since it seemed easier. /rr/ is realized as /tr/.

The stops are not prenasalized. The hyphenation is just to distinguish the roots from the suffixes. Grammatically it is ri-nta, but phonetically it is rin-ta.

There is also a secondary feature of vowels such as length, pitch, phonation, or whatever, that is not indicated in the script. This will allow for more apparent homophones, making the script a little easier to create.

While this is mainly a language to be the source of the script, I I do want to develop it enough that I can borrow vocabulary into the other language as well though, since that would be the most realistic thing to happen.

[Dē Graut Bʉr]

Looks good

[clawgrip]

Thanks again, Sano and Dē Graut Bʉr.

A quick one here: pronouns. Pronouns can be dropped. I will probably make object pronouns required as in English to indicate transitivity.



I'm torn between liking the ridiculous complexity of some of these and wondering if this culture would tolerate such an excessive number of strokes for something so basic. Maybe it will develop a short form.

The second person pronoun na is just the glyph NAN "wall; fence" used as a rebus glyph.

The third person pronouns are semantically the same root word declined for different genders, but they are visually distinct. They are all based on U "walk; run".
-the unknown pronoun is simply U used as a rebus glyph
-the animate pronoun includes the semantic complement BA "person"
-the known pronoun includes the semantic complement TREY "inside"

The glyphs that include BA "person" duplicate this glyph to indicate plural. The others use the standard plural marker.

Next I will try to get some verb stuff, but it will require digitizing a bunch more glyphs.


Buh kuburuwa tah-anuwa-phermu.
Not seeing me, they were talking.

[clawgrip]

Basic verb things
Here are some of the simple nonpast verb conjugations.

Verbs agree with the subject in person and number, but not in gender. Here is the basic nonpast paradigm of the verb anu- "speak; talk":



As you can see, the plural marker is the same as the one used for nouns. Also like the nouns, the personal endings are simply rebus glyphs, but when combined with the plural marker they are used ideographically.

Interrogatives are formed with the suffix san. Visually, this glyph is stacked with the personal ending glyphs:



Negatives are formed with the suffix buru. This glyph stacks with the personal ending glyphs, but for aesthetic reasons, they are written out of order:



Negative interrogatives end in –buru-san. The negative glyph stacks with the interrogative glyph.

[sangi39]

I'd be really interested to know if the script has a "proto-form" (like Chinese characters or cuneiform, starting out as a series of pictographic symbols which then combined and became more complex, both semantically and phonetically, over time) and, if there is one, examples of how the script developed from that proto-form to the form presented here (like the example of 馬 deriving from a "horse" pictograph).

I'm also wondering if you have something similar to stroke types (?) found in Chinese characters and later cuneiform or if the strokes are more "free form" as in Mayan or Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Regardless of any answers to either question, the script is freakin' AWESOME!

[clawgrip]

I'd be really interested to know if the script has a "proto-form" (like Chinese characters or cuneiform, starting out as a series of pictographic symbols which then combined and became more complex, both semantically and phonetically, over time) and, if there is one, examples of how the script developed from that proto-form to the form presented here (like the example of 馬 deriving from a "horse" pictograph).

When I was first developing the style of the script, I started out with some pictographs and then redrew them several times and slowly changed them into the script as it is now. That was actually probably a year ago, and I just let them sit. I picked it up again recently, but kind of altered the style of those ones. Ones I have created recently don't necessarily have any proto-form, and some of them are pictographic enough that it's still fairly obvious what they are (like the fish that represents the first person verb suffix, or the leaf or knife glyphs.

I'm also wondering if you have something similar to stroke types (?) found in Chinese characters and later cuneiform or if the strokes are more "free form" as in Mayan or Egyptian hieroglyphs.

I've actually gone halfway on this. When I decided I wanted to make it pictographic, I still obviously didn't want to just draw plain pictures of things because that would be pretty boring and lacking in any unique style. In deciding how to do this, I looked a little bit closely at how different scripts do it. Egyptian hieroglyphics seem to employ a lot of curves that are tight on one end and wide on the other, and a lot of smooth S curves based on this. I noticed a lot of diagonals also tend to align with each other. Mayan glyphs seem to make things boxier, with S curves looking a little more like Z curves. Squarish curves seem to dominate Mayan. I also looked at some old Mesopotamian art, and it seems like verticals and sharp upward curves or very flat horizontal curves dominate. In designing this one, I didn't define clearly what I wanted, but I notice that all the glyphs tend to avoid S curves. I have enough glyphs designed now that I try to form new characters based on stroke types that have already been used in existing characters.

Incidentally, I have just realized now that the negative glyph does have an S curve, and so I finally realize now why that one kind of bugged me for a reason I couldn't place, even though I like the overall design of it. maybe I will flatten out the bottom to match known gender nominative ending glyph.

Regardless of any answers to either question, the script is freakin' AWESOME!

Thank you!

The one technical problem I've run into is that the Unicode CJK range seems to have a maximum character width, but many of my glyph compounds are much wider, so I can't set the spacing properly.

[Morrígan]

The one technical problem I've run into is that the Unicode CJK range seems to have a maximum character width, but many of my glyph compounds are much wider, so I can't set the spacing properly.

You may need to use the Supplementary PUA in U+F0000..U+FFFFD, though I don;t know if the application you are using supports that.

[Grunnen]

Just wanted to say I think the script is pretty impressive. Somehow you got the look of it to work, I don't know, it's much more convincing than anything I would have come up with, I'm sure.

[clawgrip]

The one technical problem I've run into is that the Unicode CJK range seems to have a maximum character width, but many of my glyph compounds are much wider, so I can't set the spacing properly.

You may need to use the Supplementary PUA in U+F0000..U+FFFFD, though I don;t know if the application you are using supports that.

Not sure if my application supports it, but I really like using the CJK range since I assign glyphs to CJK glyphs with similar meanings, making it easier to keep track of them. So far I have just been using a very narrow space character to adjust the spacing.

Just wanted to say I think the script is pretty impressive. Somehow you got the look of it to work, I don't know, it's much more convincing than anything I would have come up with, I'm sure.

Thanks. As I said, I think it's important to come up with limitations and restrictions as to what types of lines are allowed and disallowed, and what is common and uncommon.

[kanejam]

Amazing script!! And even though it seems like you've just thrown the language itself together, it stills looks very interesting. The script, while still being logographic and obviously not cuneiform, is still very distinct from Himmaswa's script (I forget it's name), and in the same way that the Himmaswa script is distinct from Seal script yet still vaguely reminiscent of it, this script does seem to be vaguely reminiscent of cuneiform.

I especially like the wide glyphs and the not-completely-linear layout. It feels like the sort of script used to count cattle on broken pieces of pottery to be found thousands of years later. It does seem to have a style that's emerging as well; it will be interesting to see more examples and if (or how) the script will evolve. Maybe it could be borrowed multiple times, like Hittite.

I think the pronouns are maybe a little unwieldy but not too much so. If they were really worried about too complex a system, they would just invent an alphabet and anyway, I always think 我 is quite a complex character with no discernible phonetic or semantic or even pictographic parts (although there probably is historically). But maybe these are formal pronouns anyway, and so would only be written. Or possibly not real pronouns, only borrowed as such? Imagine a Japanese creole with boku as the only first person pronoun.

And apologies for sounding all fanboy, but I really do love this script. Possibly my favourite of yours so far.

[clawgrip]

Adjectives, the copula, and relative clauses
In Naduta, these three elements are all fairly closely related, so it is easy to teach them all at once.

The copula is yu-. It conjugates like a regular verb, at least in the ways we have seen so far, e.g. yugu, yutra, yurmu-buru, etc.

Both verbs and adjectives take two different forms, depending on whether they are being used predicatively or attributively. When a verb is used as a predicate, it uses the normal forms as you have seen above. When an adjective is used as a predicate, it must be combined with the copula. e.g.

trun- "big"


Guta trun-yumu.
fish-SG.ANIM.NOM big-be-3.SG
The fish is big.

iwa- "satisfied; pleased"


Iwa-yugu.
plesed-be-1.SG
I am pleased.

The copula is of course not limited to the turning adjectives into verb phrases. It can also connect nouns and pronouns:


Lusne pirwah yumu.
this-SG.KN.NOM goat-horn.KN.SG.OBJ be-3SG
This is a goat-horn.

When verbs and adjectives are used attributively, they function identically. Both must take the attributive suffix –da, which is then declined with the same case markings as the noun it is modifying. If the glyph it is attaching to has an open space beneath it, such as , AYTHU "round", the glyph is generally inserted into that open space: , AYTHU-da. If the glyph has only a small space such that the da glyph protrudes from it, such as SAY "new", the singular case suffixes may be written above the da glyph, e.g. SAY-dan (the two plural case suffix glyphs are not written above it due to their width). Some other glyphs may be slightly modified when taking da, e.g. GEN "small" > GEN-da "that is small".

Examples of adjectives and verbs being used predicatively and attributively:

Predicative:
Verbs:

Guta hesmu.
fish-SG.ANIM.NOM swim-3.SG
The fish swims.


Barta anurmu.
person-PL-ANIM.NOM speak-PL-3
The people speak.

Adjectives:

Guta trun-yumu.
fish-SG.ANIM.NOM big-be-3.SG
The fish is big.


Yerta wis-yurmu.
water-PL-ANIM.NOM clear-be-PL-3
The water is clear.
(note that ye- "water" is always plural)


Miyrena gen-yurmu.
writing.brush-PL.KN.NOM small-be-PL-3
The writing brushes are small.

Just as with BA "person", MIY "writing-brush" indicates plural by duplicating the glyph, rather than using the plural marker. This is typical for basic pictographs.

Attributive:
Verbs:

hesdata guta
swim-ATTR-SG.ANIM.NOM fish-SG.ANIM.NOM
a fish that swims (NOM)

anudarta barta
speak-ATTR-PL-ANIM.NOM person-PL-ANIM.NOM
people who speak (NOM)

Adjectives:

trundata guta
big-ATTR-SG.ANIM.NOM fish-SG.ANIM.NOM
a big fish (a fish that is big) (NOM)


wisdarta yerta
clear-ATTR-SG.ANIM.NOM water-SG.ANIM.NOM
clear water (water that is clear) (NOM)


Gendarha miyreha trugu.
small-ATTR-PL-KN.OBJ writing.brush-PL.KN.OBJ make-1.SG
I make small writing-brushes.

Notice that when (objective suffix for known and unknown genders) is written after the attributive da, it is often abbreviated as , as has been done in the last example.

[clawgrip]

Amazing script!! And even though it seems like you've just thrown the language itself together, it stills looks very interesting. The script, while still being logographic and obviously not cuneiform, is still very distinct from Himmaswa's script (I forget it's name), and in the same way that the Himmaswa script is distinct from Seal script yet still vaguely reminiscent of it, this script does seem to be vaguely reminiscent of cuneiform.

I especially like the wide glyphs and the not-completely-linear layout. It feels like the sort of script used to count cattle on broken pieces of pottery to be found thousands of years later. It does seem to have a style that's emerging as well; it will be interesting to see more examples and if (or how) the script will evolve. Maybe it could be borrowed multiple times, like Hittite.

I think the pronouns are maybe a little unwieldy but not too much so. If they were really worried about too complex a system, they would just invent an alphabet and anyway, I always think 我 is quite a complex character with no discernible phonetic or semantic or even pictographic parts (although there probably is historically). But maybe these are formal pronouns anyway, and so would only be written. Or possibly not real pronouns, only borrowed as such? Imagine a Japanese creole with boku as the only first person pronoun.

And apologies for sounding all fanboy, but I really do love this script. Possibly my favourite of yours so far.

I'm glad you like it. I did not really use cuneiform as a visual inspiration so much as a structural one. This script is kind of halfway between Egyptian hieroglyphics and Sumerian cuneiform in that unlike Egyptian, there are words are not usually spelled out phonetically, but unlike Sumerian cuneiform in that I am readily applying the rebus principle for grammatical functions, which Egyptian of course does but as I understand it Sumerian did only sparingly.

The wide glyphs were definitely inspired by these Egyptian and Sumerian as well. I wanted to do something different from Fkeuswa (the Himmaswa one) and this logo-syllabic script is about as different as I'm able to come up with.

[Ketumak]

Another impressive script of yours, Clawgrip. You must spend hours on them. Any idea how long this one has taken to date?

[kanejam]

[....] And apologies for sounding all fanboy, but I really do love this script. Possibly my favourite of yours so far.

I'm glad you like it. I did not really use cuneiform as a visual inspiration so much as a structural one. This script is kind of halfway between Egyptian hieroglyphics and Sumerian cuneiform in that unlike Egyptian, there are words are not usually spelled out phonetically, but unlike Sumerian cuneiform in that I am readily applying the rebus principle for grammatical functions, which Egyptian of course does but as I understand it Sumerian did only sparingly.

The wide glyphs were definitely inspired by these Egyptian and Sumerian as well. I wanted to do something different from Fkeuswa (the Himmaswa one) and this logo-syllabic script is about as different as I'm able to come up with.

You have definitely achieved this script looking completely different to Fkeuswa! I think the structural components of cuneiform do shine through a bit, although maybe i don't think it looks like Egyptian because Egyptian always has clearly identifiable birds and people and also because the only logographic script I know anything about is Chinese

How were these glyphs written (in-world)? I know you had a specific method of writing Fkeuswa that helped develop the unique style. Can't wait to see how this all turns out.

[clawgrip]

Part of the Egyptian inspiration is not necessarily the form so much as the words that seem to be excessively wide because they have ideographic and phonetic information side-by-side, with a kind of redundant feel to it. For example this is ḥf3w "snake". The phonetic portion is already ḥ-f-3w-w, with a redundant w, and then it is followed up with a picture of a snake just in case you didn't get it. My script is not redundant phonetically (it's actually deficient), but I wanted that feeling of redundancy in some words. This example here, quoted from above, is kind of the reverse, as it is semantically clear but has a kind of redundant phonetic complement:

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"

Nevertheless, some of the older glyphs I originally designed and some of the newer ones, to retain visual uniformity with the older ones, have a lot of straight strokes and dots and things, like KHE "man", BES "chicken", U "walk; run", or YU "be", so I can see how it may look like cuneiform as well.

How were these glyphs written (in-world)? I know you had a specific method of writing Fkeuswa that helped develop the unique style. Can't wait to see how this all turns out.

In-world, these glyphs are written with a writing brush (I actually used the word writing-brush, "miy", in the post about attributive and predicative forms). In the real world, I wrote them with this, Its thick nib allows for a lot of variation in line width based on pressure. I love this pen and use it at work for regular writing as well.

[clawgrip]

Another impressive script of yours, Clawgrip. You must spend hours on them. Any idea how long this one has taken to date?

I designed the earliest glyphs maybe a year ago, and I don't know how long that took. There were probably about 10 of them, and they established the earliest incarnation of the script's visual style. At that time, all the glyphs were rectangular and more or less the same size.
I restarted this about a week ago, and have spent probably between 0-2 hours per day (some days I did nothing at all because I had no time or was doing other things).

[clawgrip]

Adverbs and adverbials
Both adjectives and verbs can take adverbial forms. This is accomplished with the suffix –wa, which is appended to the root of the verb. This is used both to link clauses and to form certain verb conjugations.

If the verb stem ends in –u, the resulting –uwa may optionally simply be contracted to –a. This is mandatory with the copula yu, its adverbial form being ya.

yhunwa - thinking; having thought
kuwa/ka – seeing; having seen
ya - being; having been
gen-ya - being small; having been small

This form can be used to form subordinate clauses:


Usrey ka (kuwa) iwa-yugu.
3-PL-ANIM.OBJ see.ADV happy=be-1.SG
I am happy to see them (seeing them, I am happy).

note that the contraction uwa wa is not generally indicated in writing except in the case of the copula

This form can also be used to connect adjectives describing a single noun:

Besta trun-ya aythu-yumu.
chicken-ANIM.NOM big-be.ADV round-be-3.SG
The chicken is big and round.

Notice that the copula glyph is slightly deformed to fit underneath the AYTHU glyph.

This conjugation is also used in certain other aspectual forms.

Combining the main verb with the verb phe- "to take" forms the regular continuous aspect:


Ehwa phera-san?
come-ADV IMPERF-2.SG-Q
Are you coming?

Combining it with the verb whi- "to touch; to be in contact" forms a protractive continuous:


Irwa whirmu.
drink-ADV touch-PL-3
They have been drinking (for some time).

[WeepingElf]

This just continues to rock and roll!

[masako]

This just continues to rock and roll!

Indeed.

Will there be a website for us to peruse, or is this the only intended place for sharing this magic?