Teitha
I posted this almost exactly the same on ZBB, but I figured it can't hurt to have it here too. You folks are a bit more serious about your scripts, and will be able to give better feedback, I think. The Taalen alphabet, called Teitha ('marks') has finally reached a point where I'm mostly happy with it. I'll probably continue to tweak it, but here it is, as it's existed for the last year. A sample: Go to the Flickr page for details on what it says. Structure Each Taalen glyph is made of trunks (vertical lines) and branches (horizontal lines), sometimes creating forks (gaps in the cell structure), which can be filled with leaves (dots). Branches and trunks can be shortened or lengthened as needed. The Glyphs I used X-SAMPA.... I think. :) I often make mistakes with it. Oh, and /h/ should have a branch on top too, but I can't be arsed right now to fix it. I think - I'm kind of liking it.... :) Use Words must start and end with a full trunk if possible. If not possible, forks are filled with leaves. Leaves are thus often used to separate words in a text, and forks are sometimes made specifically to fit a leaf in to show this. Within a word, the glyphs should be as interlocked as possible. Because of the nature of the glyphs, which can be flipped horizontally, shrunken, or mutated in different ways, this is largely an aesthetic choice. Generally, branches are elongated to fill forks, and trunks are shortened whenever it would help branches connect the glyphs. Below are three representations of the Taalen sentence 'Neitha dauna.' or I see spiders. (Yes, my handle here means spider in Taalen.) The first line is a fairly typical version. Note the leaf that separates the two words. The second is a very compact version, still with a leaf beneath the 'a'. The last line is an overlined version with shrunken versions of the letters. A space is used between the words here, and what looks like a leaf is actually a shrunk version of 'a'. Miscellaneous samples The first is a logogram for tree 'tal', which can be used in texts to stand for the word, but is also used to highlight especially important bits. The second is a composite glyph for /ts/. The two lines in the middle are simply aesthetic to fill the space. There is a special character to indicate doubled letters (see below in Taalen), but it isn't required. The third glyph here is a common "digraph" for a doubled /T/. The second is reversed, but that doesn't change its value. The word 'teitha'. Note the extreme lengthening of the branch of the /T/. Taalen, as written in teitha. One possible variant, anyway. The leaf in the middle is simply for aesthetic reasons - a single dot doesn't mean /a/ unless the letters themselves are shortened. Note the doubler, two trunks on top of one another, which double the /a/ glyph beneath the /t/. Hand printed And lastly, the non-interlocking script, as taught to children. I haven't made a font because some of the characters are beyond my skill, though others will look very familiar. What I'm mostly proud of with this is that the teitha no longer look like tengwar, like they all did originally, but still retain some characteristics of the blockscript. A couple samples are given again too. Feedback is much appreciated!

Why are there multiple glyphs for /s o h u e i/? Are there any special rules for when to use the alternates, or is it just up to the writer's aesthetics? I do like the different levels of detail in the different styles...it gives it a very distinct feel of being natural.

The final multiple glyphs are alternates used for aesthetic reasons. Two of them can be stacked, for example, which you can't do with the regular occurring vowels. They're very common in final syllables, but there are no rules or requirements for their use.

Redid the script, built a font, and now: Comments are appreciated!

I'd like to see a map and layout of the new font-ish version.

If you're on the neography yahoo!group, I posted the font there for download. I can do a map too sometime in the next week. There will probably be delays - our net connection at home died, and don't know when it will be fixed. I'm at the office right now...

The Map: All the letters are mapped to their obvious equivalents in the font, with the following exceptions: th = T dh = D lh = L sh = S ch = x gh = G comma is one dot, period is two, doubler is colon or semicolon. Simple! Except for numbers and parens, everything else is undefined.

I like the imagery for your script, it makes it more appealing. It seems as though you've put quite some work into it, although when do you use the block-script, and when do you use the hand-print versions? And what is it traditionally written on? (just paper?)

In addition to working on a font for Carsten for Tahano, I'm also working on a font closer to how I actually write Taalen myself - it's much more arabicky (that's a word, I'm sure :) ). I'll post that when I have time. The blockscript is mainly used for decorative works, on monuments and such, but where any "lasting" words occur, it's there. It's used for sacred texts, significant quotes - anything that is intended to have a sense of "truth for the ages" or historicity. The handscript is used for teaching children and new speakers. Some newspapers and books are published in it - part of a writing reform movement, since it's easier on printers than the other style. The cursivescript is the one that looks more like Arabic, and is the main / official alphabet, used in most newspapers. Traditionally, the Taala use a paper derived from spider silk - something like high-fiber papers, but stronger. Special inks were devised, since the paper is not very absorbent (good for archiving!), and they are sort of like xerox copies. A sensitive hand can feel the letters. The blind never developed a braille-like system, since they can feel the handscript easily. By the way, the Taala farm spiders the way we farm cows. The dauyn is a large comb-footed spider, about 3 feet from fangs to spinnerets. They're domesticated, and very loving and gentle (thousands of legends describe spiders sacrificing themselves for the safety of a family - "Charlotte's Web" would be a favorite). They happily share their old web, since the Taala also farm guinea pig like animals for feeding the spiders.