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[OB] Glyph Translation Discussion (No Plot Spoilers)


Harakeke

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This is a continuation of the glyph discussion from the Stormlight Archive Translation Guide.
Please do not post plot-related spoilers in this thread.

Nazh has infiltrated the Calligrapher's Guild and provided us with a very thorough analysis of Alethi glyphs, including a table of the component phonemes glyphmakers use as a starting point for Standard glyphs:

Spoiler

OB_EPHEMERA-GLYPHS_ebook.jpg


I'm actually surprised how close we we got with deciphering some of them independently, given that we now know that the phonemes can be rotated, flipped, and distorted, mixed with Calligraphic phonemes, screw-you lines, and indecipherable symbols from the Dawnchant or something.

There are also some nice tidbits in the other illustrations, including the Kholin "Sword & Crown" glyphpair. The "compass rose" only shows up once that I was able to spot. It's featured prominently in the Kholinar map. There are some sketch captions in the women's script which I assume someone has translated by now and some very pretty Thaylen writing around image borders. I especially like how the letters almost interweave like Celtic knotwork. The writing around the map says "Thaylenah". I took a quick skim over the Taker of Secrets text, but nothing jumped out at me. I'll  take a closer look at it once I get there in the book.
There's also a map that looks like the one that Shallan found in Amaram's study in WoR.

Edited by Harakeke
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I stopped reading and spent an hour comparing that chart to my notes. I still wasn't able to decipher the HIghprince glyphs, even the new ones that Argent got from Isaac that do not appear to have been "smoothed out." There are also several symbols that appear clearly in Argent's glyphpair (which has obviously not been smoothed) which do not appear in the displayed components (which I assume are the Standard Phoneme Set). I think they must be a part of the Caligraphic Phoneme Set, which will be an entirely separate set of glyph components, which (I think) can both be used in the same glyph.

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I stopped reading for about two hours when I came to these glyphs. I honestly didn't expect we'd get something like this.

...We forgot vowels. *facepalm* This will make it a lot easier now that we know half of the screw you lines are actually vowels.

I wonder if now the Radiant Order Glyphs are decipherable.

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7 minutes ago, Rider of Storms said:

I stopped reading for about two hours when I came to these glyphs. I honestly didn't expect we'd get something like this.

...We forgot vowels. *facepalm* This will make it a lot easier now that we know half of the screw you lines are actually vowels.

I wonder if now the Radiant Order Glyphs are decipherable.

Well, we didn't quite forget them -- we were just going about it wrong. Someone did properly identify the phoneme for "A" -- we just assumed that it stood for "initial vowel" rather than one specific vowel, since those A's happened to be at the start of the word.

Based on Nazh's notes (and way too much time spent squinting at their various forms), I suspect the Radiant glyphs aren't meant to be readable. Also, many of the same glyphs existed in the early draft of WOK in which the orders/surges had different names than in the final draft.I suspect the glyph phonemes hadn't been completely pinned down at that point, and the Order glpyhs were designed to look cool, and then the art team worked backwards to build "readable" glpyhs.

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1 hour ago, Harakeke said:

Well, we didn't quite forget them -- we were just going about it wrong. Someone did properly identify the phoneme for "A" -- we just assumed that it stood for "initial vowel" rather than one specific vowel, since those A's happened to be at the start of the word.

Based on Nazh's notes (and way too much time spent squinting at their various forms), I suspect the Radiant glyphs aren't meant to be readable. Also, many of the same glyphs existed in the early draft of WOK in which the orders/surges had different names than in the final draft.I suspect the glyph phonemes hadn't been completely pinned down at that point, and the Order glpyhs were designed to look cool, and then the art team worked backwards to build "readable" glpyhs.

You're probably right, but it's worth a look.

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Airship translation:

Quote

too fansifulha?

ask rushu hou to
keep the mast from
ripping off


jasnahs favorite

Painrial translation:

Quote

touch the gems in the korrekt kombination to
release a shok from the front nodes that uill
inkapasitate an attaker

top vieu

side vieu

stormpiese
timepiese

Not quite sure on the first line of the airship one... I've triple-checked the letters, but unless there's  space missing in that second word, I don't quite get it.

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Hey, so I wanted to be clear on something: The 9 Glyphs on the lower lefthand side, those are the First Ideal?

I'm going to get the first ideal tattooed on my wrist (It's helped me a LOT with my depression), and was originally going to try and do it in the Women's Script, but I think doing it in the Glyphs would be cooler. (Although I LOVE the Women's Script as well.)

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18 minutes ago, Fourth Of The Night said:

Hey, so I wanted to be clear on something: The 9 Glyphs on the lower lefthand side, those are the First Ideal?

I'm going to get the first ideal tattooed on my wrist (It's helped me a LOT with my depression), and was originally going to try and do it in the Women's Script, but I think doing it in the Glyphs would be cooler. (Although I LOVE the Women's Script as well.)

Those seem to be the Ideals, yes. It would make an awesome tattoo.

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35 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

Airship translation:

Painrial translation:

Not quite sure on the first line of the airship one... I've triple-checked the letters, but unless there's  space missing in that second word, I don't quite get it.

Hmm. Yeah. "Too fanciful, ha?" perhaps?

16 minutes ago, Fourth Of The Night said:

Hey, so I wanted to be clear on something: The 9 Glyphs on the lower lefthand side, those are the First Ideal?

I'm going to get the first ideal tattooed on my wrist (It's helped me a LOT with my depression), and was originally going to try and do it in the Women's Script, but I think doing it in the Glyphs would be cooler. (Although I LOVE the Women's Script as well.)

Based on the context, it seems like they are.

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I want to thank everyone who has worked on deciphering glyphs, and I am excited to see more - I have been planning to get the Windrunners Glyph on my back, and wanted to get the Ideals around it in some way.  Super excited at the prospect of doing the first Ideal, at least, in glyphs around it.

 

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For the "fanciful (ha)" question--I translated it the same way, but on further inspection that question mark looks funny, almost as if it were in the font for annotations by Nazh. Could the question mark have been added to indicate that the (ha) ending is an interrogative marker? (Rather than an exclamation in the way that we would say "Ha!")

------

For the Taker of Secrets border, I can't make much sense of it. It isn't a simple repeated or palindromic pattern, but certain letters repeat themselves in near-sequence a lot. All of them seem to be interlocking in the way that words are defined in Thaylen, so I can't find obvious breaks between words. Maybe one of you can decipher some meaning from these sounds. Here are my phoneme assignments, starting in the bottom left and proceeding clockwise. hyphens indicate corners, questionable assignments are in parentheses.

(unreadable)(Th)ThFRRKThZFS(R)-RRFTh(Th)(unreadable)(V?)LFFTh(B or nothing?)-NSFZThKFRFSK(?)ThSTh(?) (unreadable) RKNSS (unreadable)

Edited by ccstat
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I am new around here and have lost a couple hours of my life now catching up on the work you have all done... Fascinating.

If I have a question it is, are we coming to the conclusion that Glyphs are meant to be pieces of art and not actually created through a thorough system that we could replicate or create with?

Thank ya'll for all the work you've done and are doing! I am hooked!

H.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I believe I've identified a section of Navani's Ketek:

5a2709f42b29a_NavanisKetek(Colored).jpg.0d51c978f5ff61e3fb7957c67c6096a6.jpg             5a270a055549f_Tsameth(Colored).jpg.82c4a88b8c295e996090b0b9463c2d61.jpg

I think we're saying that this glyph, tsameth, is probably "death", as in "life before death". If that's true, I'd guess that in the ketek, it's translated as "deadly", the middle word of the poem. (Alight, winds approach deadly approaching winds alight.)

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Has anyone tried fitting "adoda" (light) into the Lightweaver glyph?

I noticed that strength had the same beginning as weakness, same with journey and destination, is anyone focusing on etymology? Also, the phonemes feel wrong. In the ideals, both ts and zh appear, but neither has a letter to go with it. Also, are the h's in the middle of words supposed to represent modified vowel sounds or are they pronounced? Finally, is the ch pronounced like it is in English, or is it more like the Hebrew letter chet?

Edited by Personification
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Has anybody tried to apply the phonemes to the banner in Kaladin's chapter icon? (https://coppermind.net/wiki/File:Kaladin's_Chapters.svg) I can't make out anything useful.

On 11/22/2017 at 4:37 PM, Aminar said:

So... Any of you madmen want to try to translate the names of the voidbinding surges?

To answer the nonspoilery part of this... If you compare the voidbinding surges to the normal surges you can see they are the same glyphs, just with rotational symmetry rather than bilateral symmetry. I imagine it's a Vorin way of artistically indicating something perceived as "corrupted" or "twisted".

@Harakeke have you looked at the surge glyphs at all? They're going to be Alethi, so words won't mean anything interesting to us probably. But you never know. They look very modern/clear to me, which makes me think the phonemes should mostly be present. If nothing else, it might help us identify any phonemes that are missing or styled differently than those on Nazh's list. 

Brilliant catch on Navani's ketek @Wonko the Sane!

@Personification I don't see any of those in the Lightweaver glyph, but those are incredibly ancient so it's doubtful the phonograms are still apparent. (assuming it literally says "Lightweaver" in the first place)

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