Designing a language...

[Adhizen]

I've been working an aphabet concept... a visual language idea...these images are from one of my note books... Right now I'm creating a visual set of patterns with variations... this will eventually lead to identifying individual "Letters" and then they will be assigned to the alpahbet... and numbers... What makes this interesting to me is the visual beauty of the letters and the ability of those letters in pattern to communicate complex ideas, emotions and the physical interactions we engage with every day...

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[manoeuver]

That is some heady stuff. Good luck and I'll have one of whatever you're having!

[erpe]

Very cool idea, re-inventing something that we have been using for a few centuries. When I see this kind of things, I wonder what people are smoking these days But I will give it a shot once you're done. Keep us posted.

[writingrav]

I'm in for learning this when you're ready to teach.

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[Adhizen]

Its only coffee.. and a huge dash of creative imagination

That is some heady stuff. Good luck and I'll have one of whatever you're having!

[Adhizen]

Its only coffee.. and a huge dash of creative imagination

That is some heady stuff. Good luck and I'll have one of whatever you're having!

[Adhizen]

I read somewhere that we lose" x" amount indigenous lanuages everyday( can't remember the exact amount)... and we have been for a long time...the Industrial/ Buisness languages are taking over the globe. This is partly due to the rise in computers, the internet and smart/cellphones... global markets... So, for me one of the conceptual question is... Can we create new languages that evolve with our trajectory of industrial and cultural development that are beautiful and universal? And then there is the written language vs typed language and how those formulate how we use language... most people type words... Script is not taught in school anymore... etc....

It for me an interesting exercise in creativity.....

[erpe]

You might be looking for something like Esperanto, completely artificial and probably therefore with limited success. However, Esperanto used the same character-set as modern western languages. It might be an interesting thought experiment to figure out whether is would be possible to keep an language as it is and just modify the characters. For example, add a character for "PH" pronounced "F", a character for "TH" and more like it. Or maybe take it all the way and create ideograms for English.
Tradition is in the way. Just try to say the alphabet in a different order without skipping one, or change the layout of your keyboard to alphabetical order. In high-school I tried to write Dutch and German using classic Greek characters, later I tried German in Futhark. It's not easy but I haven't given up yet, good to know that I'm not the only one

[Feardorcha]

I find languages fascinating especially those with ideogram alphabets/characters. I hope you keep us posted with your progress and would love to see more examples.

[InvisibleMan]

Fun project! Ten thousand years from now, an archaeologist will find that notebook and screw up ancient history classes for all the little Eloi. That will be awesome.

[Adhizen]

For those of you who might be interest in the pens I'm using in these.... Lamy 2000 EF, Lamy dialoge 3 F, Laban Albalone with a #6 M stainless nib
At some point I'll start working with something more flexible....

[Adhizen]

I live for such mischief

Fun project! Ten thousand years from now, an archaeologist will find that notebook and screw up ancient history classes for all the little Eloi. That will be awesome.

[Waski_the_Squirrel]

There are groups that actually design languages for fun. JRR Tolkien did that to create his universe.

I briefly considered it for my science fiction, but quickly decided it was too much work with too little payoff. I'm having enough trouble learning a spare language (Chinese) anyway. But, I respect the amount of work that goes into creating a language.

[I like mango pudding]

Isn't the creation of Klingon enough for us?????

[yipe]

Welcome to the world of conscripting (CONstructing SCRIPTs), which itself is a part of conlanging (CONstructing LANGuages)!

I can't wait to see you new language! Don't forget that you don't have to make your alphabet exactly equal to abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz! Maybe you need a letter just for the TH sound. Maybe you want a letter for the th in then and a different one for the th in thin! Maybe one for the ch in chutzpah? Maybe you don't even make an alphabet! Maybe you make a syllabary! Make each letter stand for a full syllable! So a letter for a, a letter for ba, a letter for da. Or maybe your writing system only has full letters for consonants, and the vowels are represented with accent marks and diacritics!

I could go on forever, but you've stumbled upon one of the funnest, geekiest, and most creative things you can do with a fountain pen, congratulations!

[pencils+pens]

Speedwriting is a fairly successful way to speed write English. It falls within the stenographic tradition, which is something you should look at for symbolic representations of English. The most common shorthands in English are Pitman (England especially - Teeline maybe supplanting this in the UK) and Gregg (US).

Years ago, I learned Esperanto. I learned it well enough to read it but without speaking partners I could not converse in the language. I don't know if I could read it today. Esperanto is the most successful of the artificial languages.

[Adhizen]

I have this book and Scroll project that I'm working on and it seemed in order to make it unbais and neutral any text in it would have to be translated by everyone. That way no one would techically have an advantage over its content. It would be like the grimoires of the ancient alchemists... mysterious and that would draw people in to want to know...

I have been studying Tibetan, Sanskit, and some of the very eary African Alphabets... I don't want to be locked into just translating the English alphabet. I'm looking into phonetic sounds and hand gestures as well.

Its gearing up to be great winter project.

This is a pretty good resource for current know alphabets and scripts and some history about them: http://www.omniglot.com/index.htm

[dr.grace]

Your script is very nice-looking, but I agree with Waski: I'm already having enough trouble learning Chinese. (Chinese is perhaps a poster-child language illustrating the difficulties inherent in a non-phonetic script. Although there is a phonetic component to many characters, the phonic elements are subtle.)

[Marsilius]

I love it. The first one will HAVE to be called something like the Tweedle-beetle--bet, or Tweedle-beetle-bottle-battle-bet.

[Adhizen]

This is language and alphabet is mostly part of the Book and Scroll project... and part of my curiosity about what it would take to create a lanugage. It is an interesting creative design exercise because there is so much to consider when you begin to explore the written language form and how it functions to communicate complete ideas and the day to day navigation of communicating....