[OB] Glyph Translation Discussion (No Plot Spoilers)

[Subvisual Haze]

Could it just be that the Alethi women's script lacks a distinct symbol for a question mark?  Adding the "-ha" to the end of the word is like a sign of rising inflection to indicate the phrase/sentence is a question?  If that were the case, Nazh adding the question mark symbol was likely for Kris' clarity.

[Jofwu]

Figured this was worth documenting in this thread... It's in-world words, so I can't imagine much use for the time being. But in any case...

Went through the Surges real quick:

1. Adhesion
J - very clear
S - fairly clear aside from the tail at the top
U? - best guess
I suspect the remainder is meaningless.

2. Gravitation
F - very clear
A - seems distinct enough
CH? - best guess
S?/SH?/H? - a few guesses
One or both lines could be B perhaps.
Not sure about angular marks at bottom... though I wonder if they originally connected to some of the marks above but were "cut off" by the S?/SH?/H?.

3. Division
KAK seems very clear

4. Abrasion
J - very clear
S - fairly clear aside from the tail at the top
The rest could be several things if you squint. I wonder if they were connected to some degree, and some is probably meaningless.

5. Progression
B - very clear
K - very clear
E?/O?/K? - E seems more likely than O. It looks less like K, but if one or both of the black marks are an A then K works as another consonant.

6. Illumination
CH - both very clear
E/O - curls at the bottom seem like E or O
A - could be an A
The phoneme at the top seems awfully distinctive, but I'm not sure what to make of it...
And I'm not sure what to do with the angles in the middle either.

7. Transformation
S - seems clear
SH - seems very clear
CH?/E? - best guesses

8. Transportation
F - seems clear, particularly the ones in the middle
B - maybe?
Two open shapes and a sharper angle. Not sure what to do with those.

9. Cohesion
CH - seems very clear
H?/G? - best guess
A? - maybe?
Not quite sure what to make of the one in the middle.

10. Tension
K - seems very clear
SH? - seems most likely, though the curl on the top portion makes me wonder if it might be something else with embelishment at the bottom. O and I would be vowels that work perhaps?

[Pagerunner]

On 1/29/2018 at 5:43 PM, Wonko the Sane said:

I originally suspected this was the Dawnchant; like you, I thought the image felt older than others. Now, I think this is one of Ellista's "in-between, weird languages" (OB I-1, hardcover pp. 335) where different cultures used a Dawnate script to transliterate their own tongues.

A-HA! Thank you! I was having problems with asymmetry, but you've solved that for me. I'm now reasonably certain I've correctly translated the entire sample. Here's the final product:

Rishir:

  Reveal hidden contents

Valhav:

  Reveal hidden contents

Alethela:

  Reveal hidden contents

Natanatan:

  Reveal hidden contents

Thalath:

  Reveal hidden contents

Makabakam:

  Reveal hidden contents

Aimia:

  Reveal hidden contents

Shin Kak Nish:

  Reveal hidden contents

Iri:

  Reveal hidden contents

Sela Tales:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Note that for all but one kingdom, there is a diacritic of two dots over the final character. I suspect that this indicates that the word should be mirrored for symmetry. If this is true, the different diacritic used in Valhav may be to indicate the additional 'H' before mirroring.

Also note that for Sela Tales, I'm mostly guessing, as large sections of the writing are covered up by the coastline. Similarly, I'm unsure about the first letter in Aimia. I've labeled it 'A', since that fits the word, but it doesn't resemble any other 'A' we have.

I'll try and put together a translation key with what I've got here, but I unfortunately don't have the time for that right now.

EDIT: Oh, one last thing. For the most part diacritics appear over vowels, probably indicating how the vowel is voiced. The exceptions are the two dots at the end of most words, the special diacritic at the end of Valhav, and the '>' over Valhav's 'V'. I'm not at all sure what that last one might mean.

I can't believe I somehow missed this. I had just sat down to attempt to decipher this, and someone pointed me over here.

At JordanCon, about a year and a half back, Isaac ran out of time to talk to me about glyphs, so he let me email him a few questions. One was about the Alethi calligraphic phonemes. I had guesses at four of them, from cross-referencing various glyphs. G, E, I, and N, respectively.

And then, during Isaac's panel, I thought I caught him drawing a calligraphic "R." Watch the section from 19:40 - 20:00 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Om1jQ46kQ&t=1194s . It reminded me of a phoneme I had been seen come up in several glyphs:

I asked him about those five, and he said I had four of them correct. Since what I thought was the "R" looks exactly like the Dawnchant "M," I'm thinking that's the one I've got mistaken. Having the advantage of the video now, I think I'm able to see the difference, although with the amount of distortions typical for glyphs, it's still entirely possible it's an M. He didn't explicitly say it was the alternate R, just that it was a symbol in the alternate alphabet.

I'm pretty rusty at glyphs right now; I'll need to sit down and brush up on where I got my original four guesses. Don't know when I'll have time for that, though. I'd like to take the other Dawnchant symbols that don't match the standard set and see if they appear in any other glyphs; I don't think anyone's done that yet, have they?

Edited October 2, 2019 by Pagerunner
Apparently, I'm also rusty at embedding images.