Tloko / Omya redux
Anthologica Universe Atlas / Forums / Department of Creativity / Tloko / Omya redux

? masako posts: 206
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So, I have decided to sort of start anew with Omya (Kala glyphs). The syllabary will definitely stay, as it is probably as good as it can be, but the logograms were made hastily, and I'm sorta not sure how I wish to proceed.

qEyYjR7.png
What you see here are some potential logograms made by editing syllabograms and then rotating them. Given that there are over 200 syllabograms, there are thousands and thousands of possible logographic glyphs.

Here's my quandary; how to decide or determine meaning.  Do I:

1) randomly select a glyph and assign a meaning

2) base the majority of glyphs on Hanzi, Mayan, Egyptian, etc

3) look for a glyph to somewhat resemble the meaning (highly subjective)

4) select glyphs based on the phonetic values from the syllable glyphs which they were derived

Input, opinions, ideas, comments...?

? Anguipes The Great Whore That Sitteth Upon Many Waters
posts: 45
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3 and/or 4 would produce a more logical and internal consistent script, if that's what you want. 

2 would require lots of research/work for little gain, IMO.

1 would be by far the quickest method.
? masako posts: 206
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Thanks Anguipes. I think your assessment is accurate and to-the-point. However, #2 might produce significant gain if I were to do it in waves while combining it with the other methods, don't you think?
? Anguipes The Great Whore That Sitteth Upon Many Waters
posts: 45
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Well, I imagine the process for 2 would be:

1. Look up glyph in selected language(s)
2. Look for a match
3. Find exactly one match, assign glyph
3a. Find more than one and agonize over which one to pick
3b. Find one, but it already has a meaning assigned, and agonize over whether or not to change things around
3c. Not find a match.
4. Move on to the next glyph

The two big time sinks are the look-up stage and the agonizing stage.  If you think you can cope with those - efficiently looking up natlang glyphs, finding a matching Omya glyph, and not spending too long deciding - that would work.  And if time isn't an issue it barely matters.

It could also provide some good inspiration for method 3 to look through how A Natscript Did It, if you get stuck. 
? masako posts: 206
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It's like you've been living in my head...

Yeah, I'm thinking of just sorta combining all of the methods listed, but focusing mainly on 2, then 1, 4, and finally 3. It seems that would be the least maddening and produced a sufficient number of glyphs for the desired number of ~500 logoglyphs.
? Rhetorica Your Writing System Sucks
posts: 1292
, Kelatetía: Dis, Major Belt 1
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Organize them into a featural Huffman tree. log_2(500) < 9.
? masako posts: 206
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I'm not a wizard, dear. Just a simple conscriptor.
? Rhetorica Your Writing System Sucks
posts: 1292
, Kelatetía: Dis, Major Belt 1
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Slightly easier/saner strategy/explanation: devise a classification system based on simple questions about the shape, e.g. "does it have one dot on the corner," "which corner is it in," etc. like a Chinese radical stroke-counting dictionary, but with more relevant criteria than number of strokes.
? masako posts: 206
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That, is actually a wonderful idea. I had a similar notion a few weeks ago but dismissed it, partly because it dawned on me while driving and I was, of course, distracted. As I sit here now, though...I think it would be fairly easy, but might require a good bit of time given that I first need to develop a large number of glyphs before sorting them.

Thanks, Rhet.
? KathTheDragon Beware the Dragon
posts: 92
, Baroness, United Kingdom
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Incidentally, I believe that there are 4096 glyphs in total. I arrived at that figure by identifying that all glyphs can be reduced to a grid of 9 dots, with lines connecting the dots. A line between two dots indicates that the corresponding boxes are connected. So, to count the number of glyphs, one merely determines how many possible combinations of lines there are, which comes to 2^12 = 4096.
? masako posts: 206
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Yeah. That is nifty. It doesn't really help with the original question, but thank you.
? masako posts: 206
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2016 will be the year of the glyph for Kala.

My goal is to have 500 logograms by the end of 2016. 600 if circumstances permit.

As of right now, there are 175-ish defined glyphs, listed here:

http://i.imgur.com/qmeswXQ.png | http://i.imgur.com/iQOIajo.png | and http://i.imgur.com/GjwbvA7.png

I've devised a "radical" scheme that I like, so, I will have two ways of displaying the glyphs, 1st listed in "pataka" (alphabetical) order, then by glyph radicals.

Subject to change, these are the radicals, along with variations:

tbMjn2J.png

Basically, if the glyph is dominated (i.e. takes up the majority of the nine points) by a radical listed, it belongs to that radical.

I’ve created a gallery for the Tloko glyphs, here. This gallery is in pataka (alphabetical) order. I will add another gallery in the coming days that will be ordered by glyph radical (to be explained). Each of these will be updated weekly (circumstances permitting).
? masako posts: 206
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http://i.imgur.com/xWO1zeZ.png

So, I've been dabbling with the logoglyphs in the "handwritten" form, and I'm disappointed in most of them. I think that the "handwritten" will need to remain solely syllabic in use, with very few exceptions.
? Hallow XIII Primordial Crab
posts: 539
, 巴塞尔之侯
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To be honest, I quite like those on their own. I don't suppose you could do up a short text so we could see how the monumental and "handwritten" forms look in use?
? Matrix Chronicler of the Myriad
posts: 216
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I agree that the handwritten ones look good.
? Jipí der saz ûf eime steine
posts: 291
, Transition Metal, Marburg, Germany
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quoting Hallow XIII, 巴塞尔之子:
To be honest, I quite like those on their own. I don't suppose you could do up a short text so we could see how the monumental and "handwritten" forms look in use?

+1
? masako posts: 206
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Thank you, guys.

http://i.imgur.com/R2mD1X0.png

A) monumental incorporating logoglyphs

B) monumental syllables only

C) handwritten incorporating logoglyphs

D) handwritten syllables only


Phrase:
sata-kan te nisi ma’ak niya ke kunta naye kam ke tli’uma nyahi tlipiye nalomyoyek
govern-chief of west without reason O army during 3SG O COL-horse whitetie-up-PTS smile-PERM-PST-NEG
The chief governor of the West, without cause (reason), did not allow the army to smile while they tied-up the team of white horses.

I still kinda think the "handwritten" looks better as syllables only. Maybe I'm not seeing the forest for the trees.