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Sano- 09-30-2007
Cwirhald
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/cwirhald.php Cwirhald is yet another alphabet created by the people in Dardaniell, the fictional world invented by Pieter Rottiers. Cwirhald is a Dardain word meaning Hand of the king, since it is the writing system introduced by King Dhincarian himself, though it is believed the actual inventor of the script was his royal advisor, Waeleryn. The biggest difference between Cwirhald and most of the ancient scripts is that it is an alphabet in the true meaning of the word, with separate vowel signs instead of diacritics. I kinda like this one...regardless of the Tengwar-ish feel, it still has a uniqueness all its own.

fmra- 09-30-2007

I like the script, but like many others, it seems like the creator gave up when they got to the extended punctuation. The period and comma are pretty common, so no problem there, but the quick legibility of three and four dot columns drops, and they are somewhat passe on the creativity scale. I'm not sure why there is an apostrophe. It appears twice in the transscription, though only once in the original text. I'm not going to go into apostrophe bashing, because there prolly is a reason, I'm just not sure of it, but I like to see it graphically displayed differently than punctuation (unless it actually is being used as a punctuation marker).

Caenwyr- 03-21-2008

Hi there. Sorry for the late answer, but I guess late still is beter than never. Actually, I'm the one who invented Cwirhald. Your remark is true, I didn't go deep into the punctuation, though there is one thing I'd like to point out. I'm not sure why there is an apostrophe. It appears twice in the transscription, though only once in the original text. As a matter of fact, the second apostrophe you're referring to is used to indicate the mutation th>'h. This spirantization is caused by the occurence of a vowel at the end of the preceding word (hwi, which means "and"), changing thare into 'hare. Initial consonant mutations are shown with a dot above or below the concerning letter. Spirantization (b>v, c>ch, ...) is indicated with a dot above the consonant (thus replacing the upward stroke), sonorization with a dot below. A p-character with a dot above it should then be read "f", with a dot below it becomes "b". With one above ánd one below p logically should be pronounced"v". The same goes for already spirantized letters: they lose their original sound and change into a 'h. Maybe I should have added this explanation to the Cwirhald chart when I mailed it at the Omniglot website, but I decided against it, since it mainly has to do with the language, not the script. I should tell you though, for completeness' sake, that since the publication of the script much has changed to my language. The aforementioned Declaration of Human Rights used to be: run'derion saran hwi shaiar in hornilen hwi ddarcharar nasil simoriat. Tharen hanwil hwi chinsen danwil noriat, hwi 'hare in sinhir bhfariddinain dthar araliniar dturoriat. this now has rather drastically been changed to the following, due to a series of gradual grammatical and vocabulary improvements. Ru-nderion saran hwi ecol noriat hornilénde hwi ddarcharárde. Tharen hanwil hwi chinsan gaddil noriat, hwi shinhérde numarsin ensaerdán dtarciar dturoriat. As you can see, the 'hare has disappeared. There are still plenty of examples of initial mutation though (pronunciation in X-sampa): run + derion > ru-nderion (ru 'nerion) hwi + darcharárde > hwi ddarcharárde (Wi DarXar'arde) hwi + cinsan > hwi chinsan (Wi 'Xinsan) hwi + sinhérde > hwi shinhérde (Wi Sin'hErde) ensaerdán + tarciar > ensaerdan dtarciar (Ens{r'dan 'darkiar) dtarciar + turoriat > dtarciar dturoriat ('darkiar du'rOriat)

qanuk- 04-28-2008

I think initial mutations are just awesome! It seems to have an Irish/Welsh feel to it, but it is very much a conlang of it own as well. I like it.

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