by Max Barry

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4

Delphin

TWO SCRIPTS

Brethren wrote:Lore Tidbit: There are two Delphin alphabets: one of letters, and one of words.

The "alphabet" of whole-word characters came first, and was designed to be carved instead of written. Specifically, it was designed to be carved by dragons, using all five claws on their dominant hand simultaneously. Traditionally, this carving will be done on a specially prepared plank of wood -- which is a lot of bother, and takes a lot of space to store. Thus, while nearly every writing of the old Trees has survived, there still aren't very many (and none of them are copies of each other).

To use this script on a sheet of paper, specialized calligraphy brushes can be attached to the ends of a dragon's claws. It makes a powerful shorthand.

Brethren wrote:Followup Lore Tidbit: The "elongated" form (the letter alphabet) was invented shortly after the addition of humanoid persons to the Congregation. Lacking claws (and having differently proportioned hands in any case), they were unable to write the old script legibly. This limitation does not exist in reverse, as dragon hands are perfectly well-suited to manoeuvring a pen.

The sheer number of characters in the old Delphin script makes it impractical to use in movable-type printing (in which the new script is dominant). However, for certain particularly useful books, a dedicated press can be made; this method has long been popular in the trades, because the compact script allows manuals to be rendered pocket-sized without sacrificing information.

COMPACT OR CLAW-CARVED SCRIPT

Brethren wrote:Well, it's a system of logograms (which I just found out is the fancy term for whole-word characters). It's written with one hand (forepaw), all five claws extended and used as styluses simultaneously. Upward claw strokes are not effective in carving, so they are not used.

In terms of appearance, I think kanji would probably be the closest real-world equivalent . . . except, this script isn't traditionally done with brushes, so there's none of the calligraphic line-thickness stuff going on.

Brethren wrote:Lore Tidbit: You know how in English, we've got "unhappy" and "unrefrigerated" (and other words that start with "un")?

You know how "unhappy" means the opposite of happy, but "unrefrigerated" just means . . . not refrigerated?

Well, the traditional Delphin script doesn't have that kind of ambiguity! Using H to represent the character for "happiness," and R to represent the character for "refrigerate," they would be rendered as follows:

H¬, opposite of happiness
//R, absence of refrigeration

Of course, this script can just as easily handle //H. This also translates as "unhappy," but in its original form, it had no implication of distress.

You can also write R¬, of course, but most people would just use the existing (separate) word for "heated up."

Brethren wrote:one character has already been made (a while ago), and more will follow if they get story-relevance in the future. The character in question is the logogram for . . . mmm, rough translation "warning against the corruption of good intentions," and consists of three jagged lines to evoke the three main shards of Aphaeleon's broken shield.

WHY NOT MORE?

Brethren wrote:I have been thinking that it might be nice to make a letter-substitution code (with invented letters) with which to disguise my butchered Google Translate Russian.

However:

    1. I can't type in an invented alphabet, even once I've invented it
    2. If I did manage to do that, it would break up the flow of any RP post I put it in, and I'd probably have to include an English-character version as a footnote anyway
    3. The new Delphin script (where they make words out of individual letters) was created in a cultural mixing event anyway -- one which included Slavic peoples and probably at least a few speakers of whatever proto-Germanic weirdness predated Valish. It genuinely makes sense that it would use letters borrowed from pre-existing scripts.

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