Let's Make a Language: Day 12, How I Make Conscripts/Writing Systems Part I

When creating a conscript I always begin with researching real life scripts. I scan through a large selection of them, figure out how they work, their major visual motifs, and especially how they conform to the language they describe.

A good question to ask yourself at this stage is "did the speakers of this language create this script, or did they borrow it?".

If they created the script, its graphemes will usually match up really well, or even one to one with its phonemes. This is especially so in more recent scripts. For examples of this, take a look at Hangul or the many new Sub-Saharan writing systems. East Africa in particular is a treasure trove of these kinds of scripts. As a general rule the newer the script, the closer it will adhere to the language it was made for.

If they did not create the script, its orthography will probably be more complex than that of the former, and the system will have more difficulty succinctly mapping graphemes to phonemes. English is the usual suspect for this kind of script, but many many languages use writing systems that were not designed for tailored for them.

For Munya, I've decided that it will fall into the former category.

The next question you should ask yourself is "did this writing system arise naturally, or was it constructed?". The process of creating a naturally arising writing system will differ greatly from one that was constructed in-universe.

Munya will again use a writing system that falls into the former category, because I believe that's what most people will be doing/want to see.

Next question, "what medium is this language written in?". The answer to this question is probably the most important for your writing system's "look". If the main medium was chiseling into stone, like the Latin alphabet, you can expect straight lines and sharp corners, as those are easier to do when chiseling stone than swirls and curls. Again you might end up with straight edges for systems that were originally pushed into clay tablets. Writing on leaves or paper will tend to create curlier, curvier scripts as those kinds of shapes are easier to make with a brush or your fingers than straight lines.

I think Munya would be written with ink on a brush, because ink has major importance to the magic system. This means it will have a smoother, curlier appearance.

Next, I always want to cement in my mind what kind of writing system I want to create, based on the needs and restrictions of the language in question. Munya, for instance is majorly CV, so an alpha-syllabary is a likely choice; however, a true alphabet is also quite likely. I think I'll go with a true alphabet, just because many of my script I've made in the past have been alpha-syllabaries.

For a naturalistic flare, I'd recommend starting with a logography, regardless of what you want the system to end up as. Once you've created logograms for each sound you want letters, you simplify them over and over again until you wind up with a cohesive looking system.

Ok! Now that ALL of that is out of the way, we can finally finally put pen to paper. Grab some words from your conlang, make some symbols, then simplify. Next time I'll be doing the hard part, actually creating the symbols.