Admiralbenbo at 00:00, 13 October 2023

2023-10-13T00:00:45Z

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 |Most often used in poetry, but there are a handful of words where accent is critical to meaning in regular usage.
 |}
 [[Category:Languages]]
 [[Category:Noefra]]

Admiralbenbo: Created page with "Modern Runic script is a debasement of Low Runic, the mundane writing system of the titans. Low Runic, like High Runic (the language of power used by those same titans..."

2022-10-24T02:14:05Z

Created page with "Modern Runic script is a debasement of Low Runic, the mundane writing system of the titans. Low Runic, like High Runic (the language of power used by those same titans..."

New page

Modern Runic script is a debasement of Low Runic, the mundane writing system of the [[titans]]. Low Runic, like High Runic (the language of power used by those same [[titans]]), was (as far as anyone knows) logographic (like real-world Mandarin), using an incredibly complex set of concept-runes, where placement in an aggregate rune had meaning. By contrast, Modern Runic (which has remained fundamentally unchanged since the end of the Second Age) is a true alphabet, with characters expressing sound values. It is used by [[Tumni]] (spoken and written by the [[dwarves]]) and [[Too-til]] (also called "Giantish"), spoken and written by the [[jazuu]] and giant-kin of [[Noefra]]. Titan-related races elsewhere in the world use other variants of Low Runic or completely other scripts.

Modern Runic is traditionally written in blocks of four characters, with each word having 4, 8, 12, or very rarely 16 characters. Normally, these are written horizontally from left to right, bottom to top, although older writers will often write bottom to top, right to left. Poetic writings are often arranged into square 2x2 blocks, with part of the art arranging the letters such that you can create multiple readings by changing the direction you read (at least for some phrases). "Perfect" sentences have a total number of characters that is a power of 4. The dwarves of [[Shinevog]], as well as the [[Abandoned Clans]], have started using Reformed Runic, where these numerical restrictions are removed and more letters are added to represent non-tumni phonemes (especially in loanwords). Traditionalists avoid loanword and instead form complex phrases.

Informal writing places spaces between words and varies the size of the symbols (with larger symbols indicating names and other semantic emphasis. Older, more traditional writing does neither of these (hence the rigid adherence to the 4x rule to ease parsing).

== Letter Forms ==
Modern Runic has 28 letter forms, divided (among the dwarves at least) into '''consonants''' (or prime letters), '''vowels''' (secondary letters), and '''particles''' (unspoken letters).

=== Consonants ===
There are 16 consonants. Tumni and Too-til mostly disagree on assignment--they use very similar letter forms and sounds, but assign different letters to different sounds. Generally, words ''spelled'' the same (same sequence of consonants) will have similar meanings but will generally have very different sounds. Each letter has a name associated with it. A few of these can be palatalized by particles: d, r, l, n are the most commonly palatalized.
{| class="wikitable"
!Letter Name (Tumni)
!Symbol (UCS)
!Transliteration
!Sound (Tumni)
!Sound (Too-til)
|-
|Fe
|ᚠ
|F
|f
|d
|-
|Durs
|ᚦ
|d
|d
|f
|-
|Reid
|ᚱ
|r
|ɾ
|ɾ
|-
|Kaun
|ᚲ
|k
|k
|χ
|-
|Hagal
|ᚷ
|kh
|χ
|k
|-
|Tor
|ᚾ
|t
|t
|t͡s
|-
|Gyr
|ᛃ
|g
|g
|ʃ
|-
|Tsoss
|ᛈ
|ts
|t͡s
|t
|-
|Sor
|ᛋ
|s
|s
|z
|-
|Lyogr
|ᛏ
|l
|l
|l
|-
|Bjarken
|ᛒ
|b
|b
|p
|-
|Madr
|ᛗ
|m
|m
|n
|-
|Paar
|ᛚ
|p
|p
|b
|-
|Zhul
|ᛞ
|zh
|ʒ
|g
|-
|Naudr
|ᚺ
|n
|n
|m
|-
|Chiss
|ᛟ
|ch
|t͡ʃ
|t͡ʃ
|}

=== Vowels ===
There are 8 "normal" vowel forms (but note that vowels can be lengthened by particles. These generally keep their sounds consistent between Tumni and Too-til. One caution is that in writing, the number of letters is more important than marking all vowel sounds--words can be shortened to fit the 4x format by leaving out inconvenient vowels, usually an a or eh out of the last syllable. But different dialects will keep different vowels.
{| class="wikitable"
!Name
!Otsila
!Ansuzh
!Urum
!Ikh
!Yod
!Elphas
!Uhbas
!Oeln
|-
|'''Symbol'''
|ᚢ
|ᚨ
|ᚹ
|ᛁ
|ᛇ
|ᛉ
|ᚬ
|ᛜ
|-
|'''Transliteration'''
|O
|a
|u
|i
|y
|eh
|uh
|oe
|-
|'''Sound'''
|ɵ
|ɑ
|ɯ
|i
|ɨ
|e
|ə
|œ
|}

=== Particles ===
Particles have no sound, but serve ancillary purposes. There are four of them.
{| class="wikitable"
!Name
!Symbol
!Purpose
!Rules
|-
|Null Particle
|A dot at the top center of the letter block
|Added to lengthen words to fit the 4x rule
|No more than 1 per word, cannot be first character. Usually added at the end.
|-
|Combining Null
|A pair of dots at the center of the letter block
|Added to lengthen words to fit the 4x rule
|No more than 1 per word. Added between syllables.
|-
|Softening Particle
|An apostrophe character at the bottom of the letter block
|Added to indicate that the previous consonant is palatalized
|Most commonly used with Durs, lyogr, Reid, Naudr and Sor. Poetically added in other places to make 2 characters out of one (ie Tsoss + softening -> Tor or vice versa). Not always added for soft sounds.
|-
|Accent Particle
|An apostrophe-looking character at the top of the letter block.
|Added to indicate that the previous syllable carries the accent
|Most often used in poetry, but there are a handful of words where accent is critical to meaning in regular usage.
|}
[[Category:Languages]]
[[Category:Noefra]]

Runic script - Revision history

Admiralbenbo at 00:00, 13 October 2023

Admiralbenbo: Created page with "Modern Runic script is a debasement of Low Runic, the mundane writing system of the titans. Low Runic, like High Runic (the language of power used by those same titans..."