Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

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MoonRightRomantic
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by MoonRightRomantic »

Free Cities Valyrian is written in the Latin alphabet with digraphs/accents on consonants, but I would expect that in-character each phoneme would have a single grapheme. The Volantene font is fairly extensive. What would anyone suggest to replace the digraphs/accents? That is, gh kh lj ñ rh th.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by sangi39 »

MoonRightRomantic wrote:Free Cities Valyrian is written in the Latin alphabet with digraphs/accents on consonants, but I would expect that in-character each phoneme would have a single grapheme. The Volantene font is fairly extensive. What would anyone suggest to replace the digraphs/accents? That is, gh kh lj ñ rh th.
I'd largely assumed this was sort of in-show hand-waving and/or transliteration, i.e. in-world, that isn't the Latin alphabet, but for the sake of not having to have subtitles the viewer gets a Latin-script English translation.

I think it might be fairly difficult to suggest those digraphs with single graphemes without using diacritics. You could use <x> and <ɣ> in place of <kh> and <gh> and possibly <c> in place of <th> but <lj ñ rh> are a bit harder to handle.

Plus, it's hard to say without a native Valyrian script of any kind which of its phonemes are represented by a base glyph and which ones might be represent by a base and a diacritic or even by a digraph. From a High Valyrian Hieroglyph standpoint, they might be represented in that script, but as the script develops and simplified on the way down to an alphabet, certain graphical distinctions might be lost and certain phonemes might be needed to be represented in new ways.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by lsd »

The shift from logographic to alphabetic is often (always ?) linked to a cultural shift ...
I do not know if such a change is documented in this conworld ...
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by sangi39 »

lsd wrote:The shift from logographic to alphabetic is often (always ?) linked to a cultural shift ...
I do not know if such a change is documented in this conworld ...
IIRC, there kind of was. The Valyrian Freehold conquered the region of Ghiscar, originally population by speakers of Old Ghiscari. Old Ghiscari was eventually displaced by Low Valyrian (in the same way that a number of languages throughout Europe were displaced by Vulgar Latin). It's possible that Ghiscari people, who might not have been full educated in the writing system of High Valyrian, adapted and developed an alphabetic form. Since it's Ghiscari Low Valyrian that forms the basis for the Valyrian languages of Slaver's Bay it doesn't seem unlikely that Slaver's Bay might use a Valyrian derived alphabet to right the language.

On the other hand, there doesn't seem to have been much of a shift in the Free Cities. Well, except the Doom of Valyria and the Century of Blood. I wouldn't say that it's entirely unlikely that education in the written language might slip and local to the point that the writing system became more or wholly phonetic, perhaps predominantly syllabic, rather than alphabetic. After the Century of Blood, however, it might be that the Free Cities went back to using High Valyrian as a language of commerce and diplomacy (again, much in the same way Latin was used), using the Free Cities Valyrian script internally (IIRC, the Valyrian languages of the Free Cities are said to be fairly diverse).
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by MoonRightRomantic »

sangi39 wrote:
MoonRightRomantic wrote:Free Cities Valyrian is written in the Latin alphabet with digraphs/accents on consonants, but I would expect that in-character each phoneme would have a single grapheme. The Volantene font is fairly extensive. What would anyone suggest to replace the digraphs/accents? That is, gh kh lj ñ rh th.
I'd largely assumed this was sort of in-show hand-waving and/or transliteration, i.e. in-world, that isn't the Latin alphabet, but for the sake of not having to have subtitles the viewer gets a Latin-script English translation.
Oh no, Martin says that they are speaking modern English. Planetos is a fantastical version of Earth he made up so he could dramatize the War of the Roses without being limited by historical accuracy. I think Planetos takes place in Lovecraft's dreamlands setting, since Essos is one giant reference to that and the astronomy, geography and demographics exhibit numerous impossibilities that only make sense if the planet is a dream.
Edit: The Volantene font I linked to doesn't support IPA characters. Of the characters it does support, which would be optimal?
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by sangi39 »

MoonRightRomantic wrote:
sangi39 wrote:
MoonRightRomantic wrote:Free Cities Valyrian is written in the Latin alphabet with digraphs/accents on consonants, but I would expect that in-character each phoneme would have a single grapheme. The Volantene font is fairly extensive. What would anyone suggest to replace the digraphs/accents? That is, gh kh lj ñ rh th.
I'd largely assumed this was sort of in-show hand-waving and/or transliteration, i.e. in-world, that isn't the Latin alphabet, but for the sake of not having to have subtitles the viewer gets a Latin-script English translation.
Oh no, Martin says that they are speaking modern English. Planetos is a fantastical version of Earth he made up so he could dramatize the War of the Roses without being limited by historical accuracy. I think Planetos takes place in Lovecraft's dreamlands setting, since Essos is one giant reference to that and the astronomy, geography and demographics exhibit numerous impossibilities that only make sense if the planet is a dream.
I thought only the Common Tongue was English while the Valyrian languages were, well, the Valyrian languages?


MoonRightRomantic wrote:
Edit: The Volantene font I linked to doesn't support IPA characters. Of the characters it does support, which would be optimal?
I'll have to have a look when I have slightly more time. Half out the door on the way to work [:P]
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by MoonRightRomantic »

sangi39 wrote:I thought only the Common Tongue was English while the Valyrian languages were, well, the Valyrian languages?
Yes, that is what I meant to say. The New Valyrian or Andalese (?) alphabet resembles the Latin alphabet despite having no direct relationship.
Edit: By which I mean that whoever dreamed it subconsciously modeled it after the Latin alphabet.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by Inkcube-Revolver »

It may have been stated earlier in this thread, but speculating on Valyrian is kind of neat, it isn't a complete waste of time. It certainly has me pondering on how the system might look, and how to accommodate that train of thought to a conlang with a similar hurdle in developing a conscript that's more logographic and has a complex morphology. It would be really neat to see how it works and what the glyphs are like, but with all the "what-if's," I can see how the thread may go in circles.

It may be that at some point, the glyphs and how the system is devised might be acting like a separate language all on its own in the conpeople's attempt to have the written language reflect the spoken one. With most speakers just accepting that's how it works, it would be a really neat thing to play with diachronically, especially since High Valyrian has its own daughterlangs and to see how the script and how each descendant were to handle these two divisive factors. As it seems that this is not happening in the near future, Peterson pretty much tinkering on Valyrian as commission work, it'd be super and duper for any conlang to have a logographic conscript at all (don't worry, I'm aware of some that are out there).

I'm actually curious on what anybody can say or wants to say about High Valyrian and its descendants, as I haven't found many comments talking about it here. Some people have called David J. Peterson a hack, I wouldn't go that far, but I do like his material in general and have found some of his methods useful. I'm more curious on Valyrian's historical developments and how that trickles into the actual conlangs, and I like its sound, it has an aesthetic I tried looking for in earlier attempts at conlanging (of which are nowhere to be found on the Internet), and I may not be too intimate with it grammar-wise, but it looks pretty normal for an inflectional language in its function.
I like my languages how I like my women: grammatically complex with various moods and tenses, a thin line between nouns and verbs, and dozens upon dozens of possible conjugations for every single verb.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by MoonRightRomantic »

The Valyrian languages were never detailed.

At this point in time it would probably be easier to adapt Egyptian Hieratic directly to write High Valyrian much as Hanzi is used for numerous unrelated languages. Planetos already uses Latin and Futhark scripts, and High Valyrian is already Latin-influenced through Martin (e.g. the root for death is "morgh").
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by sangi39 »

MoonRightRomantic wrote:The Valyrian languages were never detailed.

At this point in time it would probably be easier to adapt Egyptian Hieratic directly to write High Valyrian much as Hanzi is used for numerous unrelated languages. Planetos already uses Latin and Futhark scripts, and High Valyrian is already Latin-influenced through Martin (e.g. the root for death is "morgh").
At the same time, though, that would be fairly boring [:P] The Valyrian languages weren't highly detailed in the books, but DJP has, along with Dothraki, thrown a ton of more data at it. I mean, yeah, it's still incomplete, but it's better than we had before GoT came around on TV.

As for "the Common Tongue is English". Well, I generally assume we can just work around that and say that it's the sole survivor of a larger language family that in the 5000 years since the Invasion of the Andals has been superseded by the Valyrian languages in Essos (note: this is one of my major gripes with the ASOIAF world. The time scales are huuuuuge). Just because the Common Tongue is English, doesn't mean we have to bow out of doing anything else interesting.

(yes, I know that the Common Tongue is spoken by a fair minority in the Free Cities and throughout the rest of Essos, proliferating knowledge of the Common Alphabet, i.e. the Latin script, and thus some areas might simply have chosen to use the Common Alphabet to write their languages as happened on Earth, but honestly, eventually this starts looking like really lazy world-building)
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But it never gets any more true,
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That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by MoonRightRomantic »

sangi39 wrote:
MoonRightRomantic wrote:The Valyrian languages were never detailed.

At this point in time it would probably be easier to adapt Egyptian Hieratic directly to write High Valyrian much as Hanzi is used for numerous unrelated languages. Planetos already uses Latin and Futhark scripts, and High Valyrian is already Latin-influenced through Martin (e.g. the root for death is "morgh").
At the same time, though, that would be fairly boring [:P] The Valyrian languages weren't highly detailed in the books, but DJP has, along with Dothraki, thrown a ton of more data at it. I mean, yeah, it's still incomplete, but it's better than we had before GoT came around on TV.

As for "the Common Tongue is English". Well, I generally assume we can just work around that and say that it's the sole survivor of a larger language family that in the 5000 years since the Invasion of the Andals has been superseded by the Valyrian languages in Essos (note: this is one of my major gripes with the ASOIAF world. The time scales are huuuuuge). Just because the Common Tongue is English, doesn't mean we have to bow out of doing anything else interesting.

(yes, I know that the Common Tongue is spoken by a fair minority in the Free Cities and throughout the rest of Essos, proliferating knowledge of the Common Alphabet, i.e. the Latin script, and thus some areas might simply have chosen to use the Common Alphabet to write their languages as happened on Earth, but honestly, eventually this starts looking like really lazy world-building)
Planetos has extremely lazy world building and numerous impossibilities. The scales for everything are unrealistic: someone wrote an essay about how the demographics of Westeros are impossible. But I digress.

I'm concerned about unicode support. It makes typing and sharing a lot easier to use a Hieroglyphic or Cuneiform keyboard. I'm not going to the effort of making a new script on my current salary.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by sangi39 »

MoonRightRomantic wrote: Planetos has extremely lazy world building and numerous impossibilities. The scales for everything are unrealistic: someone wrote an essay about how the demographics of Westeros are impossible. But I digress.
Dragons and weird seasons I'm all right with being justified by "magic, dude", but yeah, the scale of some things just seems so unbelievably huge. Oh the irony [:P]


MoonRightRomantic wrote: I'm concerned about unicode support. It makes typing and sharing a lot easier to use a Hieroglyphic or Cuneiform keyboard. I'm not going to the effort of making a new script on my current salary.
Well that's your choice, I suppose. Honestly, I'd be a little disappointed if, on any official level, this is the direction they chose to go down. Language-wise the TV programme is much more in-depth than the books. Maybe some day someone will follow up on DJP's ideas, if not him.
You can tell the same lie a thousand times,
But it never gets any more true,
So close your eyes once more and once more believe
That they all still believe in you.
Just one time.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by MoonRightRomantic »

sangi39 wrote:Dragons and weird seasons I'm all right with being justified by "magic, dude", but yeah, the scale of some things just seems so unbelievably huge. Oh the irony [:P]
The Discovery Channel once aired a mockumentary where they created scientifically plausible dragons, so the fantasy defense is weak on that front. The weird seasons would have a much larger effect on the biosphere and society than they are presented as having in the books, like the population entering suspended animation for years at a time like the vampires in Blindsight. Martin has no knowledge of any of the subjects he is writing about besides cooking, so while he might be able to spin an engaging yarn his world cannot possibly exist unless the story is so unreliable it's more like a gigantic urban myth written in modern prose or it's a literal dream world as I advocated before.
sangi39 wrote:
MoonRightRomantic wrote: I'm concerned about unicode support. It makes typing and sharing a lot easier to use a Hieroglyphic or Cuneiform keyboard. I'm not going to the effort of making a new script on my current salary.
Well that's your choice, I suppose. Honestly, I'd be a little disappointed if, on any official level, this is the direction they chose to go down. Language-wise the TV programme is much more in-depth than the books. Maybe some day someone will follow up on DJP's ideas, if not him.
I blame technology for being Eurocentric. DJP did make Kamakawi, but it's a logosyllabary rather than a logoconsonantary and I am not going to try the Linear B approach.

Actually, how well do you think Kamakawi could be adapted to write Valyrian?
Edit: I will be going through the Valyrian vocabulary and making logograms for all the morphemes that I can find using the Kamakawi aesthetic as a basis. I will devise a unicode substitution scheme as well for digital display.
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Re: Writing hieroglyphics for Valyrian?

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

MoonRightRomantic wrote:
lsd wrote:Proto- means it was not...
Their family links is not a sure issue but the degradation that make it possible ...
...and its reengineering in evolution skill...
I don't believe that writing systems develop along a hierarchy any more than other memes do. The paleohispanics turned an alphabet into an alphabet with plosive syllabograms, so clearly the same process may travel in the other direction.

I have been speculating on how a writing system could change from one type to another. If a syllabary might become an alphabet through progressive simplification (such as with Cuneiform and Bamum), then it stands to reason an alphasyllabary that distorts consonants in an irregular manner might after enough handwriting iterations become a true syllabary.
A number of Algonquian peoples around the Great Lakes "organically" or "naturally" developed (i.e. it wasn't the brainchild of one person) a semi-syllabary/abugida-ish writing system out of the Latin alphabet, which might provide some insight:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_langu ... ng_systems

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lak ... _syllabics
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