Example of the Amlin script

[marnanel]

Since several of you wanted to see it, here's an example of my current draft of the Amlin script, used to write Nimyad:

am soc caril tiricoth yalad far ac yoroden til
then the whole earth had one language and a common tongue

This is just to show you what it's supposed to look like.  Note that I slipped up on the first word and wrote a "rejim" for a "maran", so it says "ar" instead of "am".  Sorry.

Below is the current set of graphemes I'm working with.  It's not the first version by any means, but let's call it 1.0 because it's the first public release.  I am using the range U+E6D0 to U+E6EF in the private use area, but that might change.  I may submit this to CSUR when it's a bit more mature.

The "key" column gives a keyboard mapping, for typing Amlin letters on a QWERTY keyboard.

In the story, the script was created by Lififel of Rindal around the year 450 after the settlement, who taught it to the Lirimelen, the college of storytellers.  Lififel gave his letters the collective name "Amlin", after the sacred river where the reeds grew which were used to make the first pens.
 

 

Glyph	Name and tentative codepoint	IPA	Key
Vowels
	U+e6d0 AMLIN VOWEL ARAL	æ	a
This vowel, like all vowels, is written under the consonant it precedes. "aral" means "eye"; this is presumably a stylised representation of an eye. Written under numerals to increase their value by five, since it is the vowel from "ca", the number five; see also "cafa".
	U+e6d1 AMLIN VOWEL EREJ	ɛ	e
"erej" means either "ten" or "toe". Stylised representation of a foot? Also written under numerals to increase their value by ten.
	U+e6d2 AMLIN VOWEL ISO	ɪ	i
"iso" means "give" or "go". It is not known why this letter has this shape.
	U+e6d3 AMLIN VOWEL OFEF	ɒ	o
"ofef" means "stone"; this is possibly a stylised representation of a stone?  "ofef" may be too similar to "iso" for comfort.
Consonants: the Great Five
	U+e6d4 AMLIN LETTER FAFAR	f, v	f
The Great Five consonants are named after words which contain them in the middle, rather than initially. "fafar" means seed. This may be a moon representing the month for sowing, or it may be a first-quarter moon representing the idea of beginning implicit in fafar. fafar also finds use as the numeral 1, which begins with this phoneme.
	U+e6d5 AMLIN LETTER NARAN	ɾ	r
"naran" means "egg". This appears to represent an egg.  (Some hold that it also represents the moon.)
	U+e6d6 AMLIN LETTER SOLOR	l	l
"solor" means "child". This letter appears to be a modified form of fafar. This is also used as the digit 2 because the number two, "lirim", begins with this letter.
	U+e6d7 AMLIN LETTER REJIM	ʃ, ʒ	j
"rejim" means "wisdom". It is not known why this letter has this shape.
	U+e6d8 AMLIN LETTER ETHIF	θ, ð	h
"ethif" means "death" or "harvest". This may represent a declining moon. At one point "ð" was used in transcribing this letter into the Latin alphabet, but the digraph "th" is used in modern times.
	U+e6d9 AMLIN SYMBOL FOR PERFECTION	(?)	p
Part of the creation story of the Nimyadelen tells how their language fell away from perfection. According to this story, there was once a sixth phoneme of the Great Five, which is now forgotten and has not been spoken in living memory. When the alphabet was developed, a symbol for this lost phoneme was provided. It has only ceremonial use. (The fact that this is mapped to "p" on the keyboard should not be taken to mean that the lost phoneme was /p/.  "P" was available, and "perfection" begins with "p" in English, so it seemed appropriate.)
Consonants: others
	U+e6da AMLIN LETTER CAFA	k	c
"cafa" means "darkness". This letter is often used to mark records of events after nightfall. Along with aral, it is also used as the digit 5, because the number five, "ca", begins with this letter.
	U+e6db AMLIN LETTER NEREL	n	n
"nerel" means "day". This letter is often used to mark records of events during daytime.
	U+e6dc AMLIN LETTER MARAN	m	m
"maran" means "fire"; this may be a stylised representation of flames.
	U+e6dd AMLIN LETTER DIFOR	d	d
"difor" means "tooth"; this appears to represent a tooth. Used as the digit 3 because the number three, "de", begins with this sound.
	U+e6de AMLIN LETTER SERET	s, z	s
"seret" means "foot"; this appears to represent a foot.
	U+e6df AMLIN LETTER TARAS	t	t
"taras" means "light"; this appears to represent a fork of lightning. By historical accident, there are two glyphs representing the phoneme /t/ (in the Olic dialect), taras and taram; taras is far more common. Some writers appear to use only taras; others keep them distinct. People from Olic find this confusing, since the Olic dialect has never to our knowledge distinguished the two sounds; however, it is believed that the Rindal dialect distinguished /t/ and /ʈ/ (the designer of the alphabet was born in Rindal) and that taram was intended to represent /ʈ/.
	U+e6e0 AMLIN LETTER TARAM	t, ʈ	x
"taram" means "wheel"; apparently a representation of a wheel. See under taras for an explanation as to why there are two symbols for /t/.
	U+e6e1 AMLIN LETTER IDO	w	w
"ido" means "come", and this is often paired with "iso".  Very few Nimyad words have initial w-, which may explain the unusual name.
	U+e6e2 AMLIN LETTER YOROD	j	y
"yorod" means "tongue". Representation of a tongue?
Consonants: archaic
	U+e6e3 AMLIN LETTER DAJAD	dɾ, d	q
Originally represented the initial consonant cluster /dɾ/ which has died out in the Olic dialect. Still used by conservative writers to write words which historically had this sound. Used as the digit 4 because the number four, "dajad", originally had this initial sound. The symbol perhaps once had four lines?
	U+e6e4 AMLIN LETTER SARAL	sk, s	k
Originally represented the initial consonant cluster /sk/ which has died out in the Olic dialect. Still used by conservative writers to write words which historically had this sound. "saral" means "sound"; this may represent a drum.
Other symbols
	U+e6e5 AMLIN VOWEL CARRIER		v
Fills in the consonant space when a vowel stands alone at the end of a word, as in "tasi".  (Should this have its own codepoint?  Can the font work out to add it automatically?)
	U+e6e6 AMLIN NAME MARKER		g
Also known as naratacan. No sound of its own; commonly used as a mark of respect before the name of a person or city. (Mapping this to "g" on the keyboard is a tribute to the Shavian layout, which places the naming dot on G.)

And here's a font.  I could quite easily put up a web page to let you type things, if you like.

How would you like to see this draft improved?

Comments

[marnanel]

lj user=forthright also asked for an explanation of numerals; I'll write one up.

Good point about the codepoints (so to speak).

To some extent I am deliberately writing the descriptions as if they were done from fieldwork (I write "possibly" a lot, when surely I should know for sure); and to some extent they really are done from fieldwork in that they turn up in my head and I write them down. I don't always know what the original ideas were, and sometimes other people can see them better than I can. Which were you thinking of particularly?

[rho]

OK, for me, iso brought to mind an image of a bowl, probably a bowl containing food being given to a child, since food is one of the most basic and important things anyone can give to someone else.

Rejim looks like a hat, which could be symbolic in an institute of learning: for instance, mortar boards, wizards' hats, etc.

Finally, and possibly most tenuously, but also the one that jumped out the most at me, nerel looks like the horizon, which is the delimiter of day time, as the sun rises and sets.

PuFNuyRIlnda

[(Anonymous)]

VrCj08 Yeah� I read and I understand that I do not understand anything what it is about:D