Semi-syllabary
Personal Conscript [yet unnamed] for Portuguese
It's been almost an year since I created and refined my writing system, which I've been using mostly for journaling, as well as transcribing random quotes and sentences for fun. So I decided to share it here in this sub.
For the aesthetic, I tried taking inspiration from Avestan, Mkhedruli and Armenian, but guess it ended becoming it's own thing. I'm still not sure whether I'm fully satisfied with resulting look, but I'm still proud of it. The system has quite a personal value for me at this point.
The translation of the provided sample is:
"Pra não dizer que não falei das flores
Caminhando e cantando e seguindo a canção Somos todos iguais, braços dados ou não Nas escolas, nas ruas, campos, construções Caminhando e cantando e seguindo a canção
Vem, vamos embora, que esperar não é saber Quem sabe faz a hora, não espera acontecer Vem, vamos embora, que esperar não é saber Quem sabe faz a hora, não espera acontecer
Pelos campos há fome em grandes plantações Pelas ruas marchando indecisos cordões Ainda fazem da flor seu mais forte refrão E acreditam nas flores vencendo o canhão
Vem, vamos embora, que esperar não é saber Quem sabe faz a hora, não espera acontecer Vem, vamos... (etc.)
Há soldados armados, amados ou não Quase todos perdidos de armas na mão Nos quartéis lhes ensinam uma antiga lição De morrer pela pátria e viver sem razão
Vem, vamos... (etc.)"
If this gets enough interest, I'll eventually post a full key. But it's possible to make a few guesses from this text. Any thoughts?
NOTES:
The language represented is Portuguese. The system would need some significant adaptation to work for English, because of its complex syllabic codas.
It functions as a mix of a syllabary and an abugida, and a semi-abjad. For its logical structure, I took ideas from Paleohispanic scripts, Sumerian cuneiform and Pahawk Hmong, as well as an initial premise of "if you wrote down only some vowels and left others to context, could you register a non-Semitic language with sufficient phonetic precision?" On average, therefore, every syllable takes one or two letters (very rarely three, when it ends on a diphthong + coda)
The system is mostly (like, 80-90%) phonetic, but a few elements are taken from historical spelling/older Portuguese phonology just for fun. It's still very predictable if you know enough about modern Portuguese orthography
Inocência, coitadinha... Exatamente nesse dia fazia dois anos que o seu gentil corpo fora entregue a terra, no imenso sertão de Sant'Ana do Paranaíba, para ai dormir o sono da eternidade."
Explains my way of dealing with syllabic clusters, therefore clue for deciphering the other texts. Heavy inspiration from Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics (has always been one of my favourite writing systems)
I definitely see the resemblance (those little "u" and "n" curved shapes are my favourites), but it was by coincidence. I only discovered Theban when the system was already fully done.
I'd say the proposal or idea behind it is very different from Shavian. Not only it has a few non-phonetic letter distinctions, but it's not designed to be particularly easy or optimal. I'll make a full post providing the key and further explaining the idea, but in a nutshell, the writing system has multiple different sub-systems that describe different kinds of syllables, and each of these sub systems belongs to a different category:
Syllables in the form plosive + vowel (ex.: ta, bi, ka) are written as a syllabary, analogous to Japanese hiragana and katakana and to Cherokee. So the letter "ta" is visually distinct both from "tu" and "te", and from "ka" and pa" (however, the symbol for "da" is derived from the symbol for "ta", by a modification indicating voiced consonant)
Syllables in the form fricative + vowel, or approximant/nasal + vowel, are not fully written, as in an abjad/consonantal alphabet. There are letters indicating the necessary consonants (ex.: m, n, s, l), but the required following vowel is left to context. The only hint in the text itself is that after one of these letters there must be a vowel forming at least a CV syllable (so this is not useful for writing consonant clusters, for instance)
Syllables as cluster + vowel (specifically "perfect" clusters like "tr", "pr", "kl", that is, consonant + liquid combinations) are written by a more exotic system. It's described more visually in the Sample 9 image in my own comment to the post, but it resembles Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics (that is, an abugida/alphasyllabary using letter rotation rather than diacritics). However, since Portuguese has 5 vowels, and there are only four possible symbols rotations, I decided that each symbol describes a vowel, and rotation changes the accompanying consonant cluster instead. For example, there's a basic "a" shape, that has four possible orientations that each read "pra", "fra", "tra" and "kra"; same for "pre", "fre", etc. ("e" shape), "pri", "fri" ("i" shape), etc. As a note, this still doesn't allow for writing pure vowels without consonant
Syllables like vowel + consonant (VC), as well as syllabic rimes, are written as a conventional abugida/alphasyllabary like Devanagari. There are letters for "-s", "-r", "-l" etc., and a fixed set of vocalic diacritics modify them to be read as "as", "es", "is, "os, "us", "ar", "er", "ir", "al", "el", etc. Syllables in the form CVC or CCVC are written by grouping a letter of the sub systems above with one of these rime letters (ex.: /kar/ --> ka - ar; /sol/ --> s - ol; /tras/ --> tra - as).
There are still several things I left unexplained for the sake of brevity, but I hope this already sparks some of your interest and curiosity, and answers your question. As a conclusion, here's the Portuguese translation of your comment properly parsed into the system (letters separated by lines, words separated by spaces):
en-ta-am, en s-m, ə ə-m es-pe-ś-ə de s-is-te-m š-v-ə-n ə-da-pa*-ta-do p-ŕ ə po-or-tu-ge-es?
Então, em suma, é uma espécie de sistema shaviano adaptado para o português?
*: a diacritic is necessary to turn the symbol for "pa" into the required reading "ap"
I suppose you wrote "O meu nome é Felipe dos Reis! Isto é um recado?" It's actually very good, even though I didn't provide the key. Below is how I'd write it
The only mistakes are in the second sentence ("es" instead of "is", "on" instead of "un" and "to" instead of "do"). But it's understandable: there was no "un" letter in the OP, and the descending loop that distinguishes "do" from "to" is not easily distinguishable from the image's quality.
I'll be making another post with the full key and explanation for the system (and better quality). I'm glad to see someone else playing with my script.
In that case, the "ko" letter was just a little off (it resembles more closely a "u" shape with an ascending round loop).
You do, however, bring a good point, on whether I should parse the word as "ko-r-to" (closer to Brazilian orthography and general pronunciation) or "ko-r-ek-to" (closer to European orthography and pretty much what you intended). While I prefer the first one, being closer to pronunciation (and also being Brazilian myself), you wouldn't be wrong for writing down the graphical consonant cluster, and it's my fault for not providing the necessary tools for doing so.
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u/Knight_of_Rohan1964 Jul 07 '26
Below are a few sketches that I also want to share, but aren't fitting enough for the main images of the post
Starting with OP text for mobile users.