The Myth of the God Incarnate

Writing
Copyright (c) Simon Brooke 1992-1995
describing the system of writing in use in the Great Place

The Glyphs

The people of the Place use a writing system based on a set of glyphs. These are fairly recently derived from hieroglyphs, and each of the phonetic glyphs can also be used as a word glyph. Several other word glyphs not part of the conventional phonetic glyph set may be used as word glyphs, but this usage is now considered archaic. The glyphs for each of the religious cults have been adopted as vowel glyphs, thus giving nine (decimal) vowels, respectively:
The Vowel Glyphs
the eye 'i' as in high
the foot 'oo' as in foot
the nose 'o' as in nose
the hand 'a' as in hand
the ear 'ee' as in here
the mouth 'ow' as in owl
the stomach 'ae' as in wame
the cock 'o' as in cock
the cunt 'u' as in cunt
An additional seven glyphs have been adopted as consonants. These are
The Consonant Glyphs
the tree 't' as in tree
the sea 's' as in sea
the pea 'p' as in pea
the bee 'm' as in hum
the flint 'ck' as in click
the drum 'd' as in drum
the feather 'f' as in feather

Four diacritical marks or accents are used. These are, respectively, 'line above' (pronounce the marked glyph with the tongue on the palate), 'line below' (pronounce the marked glyph with the tongue on the teeth), 'arrow before' (aspirate), and 'lightning above' (roll - used with the tree or the drum to give 'r' sounds; with other glyphs, may be used to lengthen). A diacritical mark should be drawn touching or almost touching the glyph to which it relates.

There is no glyph for 'God'. Instead, a space is left between successive word end markers as big as a single glyph.

Punctuation

Words are conventionally separated by two dots, like a colon but rotated through 90 degrees, sentences by three dots like an ellipsis. No other punctuation is used. Text is written from the top of the writing area downwards, with successive lines following from left to right. Lines may optionally be separated by a vertical rule.

Writing Tools and Technology

In formal writing elaborate pictograms are used for the glyphs. In order to facilitate this, a scribe will have a set of sixteen (= 20 octal) rings, one worn on the middle bone of each finger, and one on the tip. Each ring forms the die for one glyph, and writing is done by the scribe wearing all the rings simultaneously, and striking the writing surface with the appropriate one for each successive glyph. The conventional writing surface is wax, or, for permanent documents, clay which will later be fired. Diacritical marks and punctuation are put in later with a stylus.

Informal writing uses a shorthand form of the glyphs, with just enough of the outline being drawn to distinguish each glyph from its neighbour. This form is used most often on wax, or on paper with ink, a relatively recent development.

Copyright (c) Simon Brooke 1992-1995

Comments, criticism and feedback welcomed.

give me feedback on this page // show previous feedback on this page