A constructed script is a new
writing system specifically created by an individual or group, rather than having evolved as part of a language or culture like a natural script. Some are designed for use with
constructed language
A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...
s, although several of them are used in
linguistic experimentation or for other more practical ends in existing languages. Prominent examples of constructed scripts include Korean
Hangul and the
International Phonetic Alphabet.
Constructed scripts and traditional "natural" writing systems
All scripts, including traditional scripts ranging from
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...
to
Arabic script
The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...
, are human creations. However, scripts usually evolve out of other scripts rather than being designed by an individual. In most cases, alphabets are ''adopted'', i.e. a language is written in another language's script at first, and gradually develops peculiarities specific to its new environment over the centuries (such as the letters
w and
j added to the
Latin alphabet over time, not being formally considered full members of the English (as opposed to Latin) alphabet until the mid-1800s). In the vast majority of cases, inventors of writing systems have been either literate themselves or familiar with the concept of writing (see
History of writing). As such, constructed scripts tend to be informed by at least one older writing system, making it difficult in some cases to decide whether a new script is simply an adoption or a new creation (for example the
Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = Gr ...
and the
Gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
alphabets, which are heavily influenced by the Greek alphabet but were nevertheless designed by individual authors).
In the rare cases where a script evolved not out of a previous script, but out of proto-writing (the only known cases being the
Cuneiform script
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...
,
Egyptian hieroglyphs, the
Chinese script
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as '' kan ...
and the
Mayan script
Maya script, also known as Maya glyphs, is historically the native writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica and is the only Mesoamerican writing system that has been substantially deciphered. The earliest inscriptions found which ...
, with ongoing debate as to whether the hitherto-undeciphered
Indus script and
Rongorongo are true writing or proto-writing), the process was nevertheless a gradual evolution of a system of symbols, not a creation by design.
Overview of constructed writing systems
For previously unwritten languages
Some scripts were invented to for spoken languages that did not have adequate writing systems, including
Hangul,
Cherokee,
Syllabics,
N'Ko,
Fraser Fraser may refer to:
Places Antarctica
* Fraser Point, South Orkney Islands
Australia
* Fraser, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb in the Canberra district of Belconnen
* Division of Fraser (Australian Capital Territory), a former federal e ...
,
Tangut and
Pollard scripts.
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
,
Georgian, and
Glagolitic may fit in this category, though their origin is not known.
For religious and mystical purposes
Many scripts are created for religious or mystical purposes. Missionaries and religious scholars may be motivated to devise new scripts for previously-unwritten languages to facilitate the translation of religious writings, as was the case for several of the scripts mentioned in the previous section. Religious leaders may promulgate new writing systems among their followers for liturgical use and/or the promotion of cultural identity and unity, as with
Sorang Sompeng,
[
] Medefaidrin and the
script
Script may refer to:
Writing systems
* Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire
* Script (styles of handwriting)
** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of ha ...
invented by the Zomi religious leader
Pau Cin Hau Pau Cin Hau is the founder and the name of a religion followed by some Tedim, Hakha in Chin state and Kale in Sagaing division in the north-western part of Myanmar.
Pau Cin Hau was born in the Tedim (Tiddim) in 1859; and lived until 1948. He sta ...
, among many others.
Relatedly, some scripts are created for
mystical or
magical uses, such as communication with purported spiritual entities. Such is the case with
John Dee
John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, teacher, occultist, and alchemist. He was the court astronomer for, and advisor to, Elizabeth I, and spent much of his time on alchemy, divinatio ...
and
Edward Kelley
Sir Edward Kelley or Kelly, also known as Edward Talbot (; 1 August 1555 – 1597/8), was an English Renaissance occultist and scryer. He is best known for working with John Dee in his magical investigations. Besides the professed ability to ...
's
Enochian
Enochian ( ) is an occult constructed language — said by its originators to have been received from angels — recorded in the private journals of John Dee and his colleague Edward Kelley in late 16th-century England. Kelley was a scryer who ...
language and alphabet, the various scripts (including
Celestial
Celestial may refer to:
Science
* Objects or events seen in the sky and the following astronomical terms:
** Astronomical object, a naturally occurring physical entity, association, or structure that exists in the observable universe
** Celest ...
,
Malachim,
Theban, and
Transitus Fluvii
Transitus Fluvii ("passing through the river" in Latin) or ''Passage Du Fleuve'' (in French) is an occult alphabet consisting of 22 characters described by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa in his '' Third Book of Occult Philosophy'' ( Cologne, 1533, ...
) documented by
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and his teacher
Johannes Trithemius, and possibly the ''litterae ignotae'' devised by
Hildegard of Bingen
Hildegard of Bingen (german: Hildegard von Bingen; la, Hildegardis Bingensis; 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher ...
to write her
Lingua Ignota.
Several of these scripts are described by their creators as having been revealed during or developed in response to
visionary experiences.
For fictional languages
The best-known constructed scripts dedicated to
fictional language
Fictional languages are the subset of constructed languages (conlangs) that have been created as part of a fictional setting (e.g. for use in a book, movie, television show, or video game). Typically they are the creation of one individual, while ...
s are
J. R. R. Tolkien's elaborate
Tengwar
The Tengwar script is an artificial script, one of several scripts created by J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of ''The Lord of the Rings''.
Within the fictional context of Middle-earth, the Tengwar were invented by the Elf Fëanor, and used f ...
and
Cirth
The Cirth (, meaning "runes"; sg. certh ) is a semi‑artificial script, based on real‑life runic alphabets, one of several scripts invented by J. R. R. Tolkien for the constructed languages he devised and used in his works. ''Cirth'' is w ...
, but many others exist, such as the
pIqaD script for ''
Star Treks
Klingon language,
Aurebesh from ''
Star Wars'',
D'ni
''Myst'' is a franchise centered on a series of adventure video games. The first game in the series, ''Myst'', was released in 1993 by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller and their video game company Cyan, Inc. The first sequel to ''Myst'', ''Riven' ...
from the ''
Myst'' series of video games,
and the script of the Orokin language (referred to by members of the community as "Tennobet", a portmanteau of "
Tenno
The Emperor of Japan is the monarch and the head of the Imperial Family of Japan. Under the Constitution of Japan, he is defined as the symbol of the Japanese state and the unity of the Japanese people, and his position is derived from "the wi ...
" and "alphabet") from the video game ''
Warframe''.
For technical purposes
Several writing systems have been devised for technical purposes by specialists in various fields. One of the most prominent of these is the
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), used by linguists to describe the sounds of human language in exhaustive detail. While based on the
Latin alphabet, IPA also contains invented letters, Greek letters, and numerous diacritics. Other scripts, such as John Malone's
Unifon
Unifon is a Latin-based phonemic orthography for American English designed in the mid-1950s by Dr. John R. Malone, a Chicago economist and newspaper equipment consultant.
It was developed into a teaching aid to help children acquire reading a ...
,
Sir
James Pitman's
Initial Teaching Alphabet
The Initial Teaching Alphabet (I.T.A. or i.t.a.) is a variant of the Latin alphabet developed by Sir James Pitman (the grandson of Sir Isaac Pitman, inventor of a system of shorthand) in the early 1960s. It was not intended to be a strictly phone ...
,
and
Alexander Melville Bell
Alexander Melville Bell (1 March 18197 August 1905) was a teacher and researcher of physiological phonetics and was the author of numerous works on orthoepy and elocution.
Additionally he was also the creator of Visible Speech which was use ...
's
Visible Speech were invented for
pedagogical purposes.
Yerkish, a communication system created for use by non-human primates, involves a system of lexigrams- visual symbols corresponding to various objects and ideas.
Shorthand systems may be considered constructed scripts intended to facilitate speed and ease of writing.
Language reform
Some constructed scripts are intended to replace existing writing systems. In the mid-1800s,
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints promoted the
Deseret alphabet
The Deseret alphabet (; Deseret: or ) is a phonemic English-language spelling reform developed between 1847 and 1854 by the board of regents of the University of Deseret under the leadership of Brigham Young, the second president of the ...
as an alternative writing system
better suited to English phonology;
roughly a century later, the estate of Irish playwright
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
commissioned the
Shavian alphabet (later developed into
Quikscript
QUIKSCRIPT is a simulation language derived from SIMSCRIPT, based on 20-GATE.a programming language for the 1960s Bendix G-20 computer
References
* "Quikscript - A Simscript-like Language for the G-20", F.M. Tonge et al., Communications of ...
) to serve similar aims.
Graphic Designer
Bradbury Thompson
J. Bradbury Thompson (March 25, 1911 – November 1, 1995) was an American graphic designer and art director known for his work designing magazines and postage stamps.
Early life and education
J. Bradbury Thompson was born on March 25, 1911 in To ...
's
Alphabet 26 represents a similar project. (see also:
English-language spelling reform). Taking language reform further, various proposed
philosophical or
auxiliary languages
An international auxiliary language (sometimes acronymized as IAL or contracted as auxlang) is a language meant for communication between people from all different nations, who do not share a common first language. An auxiliary language is primaril ...
- such as
aUI,
Solresol
Solresol ( Solfège: Sol- Re-Sol), originally called Langue universelle and then Langue musicale universelle, is a constructed language devised by François Sudre, beginning in 1827. His major book on it, ''Langue Musicale Universelle'', was pub ...
, and the language outlined in
John Wilkins
John Wilkins, (14 February 1614 – 19 November 1672) was an Anglican clergyman, natural philosopher, and author, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was Bishop of Chester from 1668 until his death.
Wilkins is one of the ...
' 1668 ''
An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language'' have associated writing systems.
Charles K. Bliss's
Blissymbols
Blissymbols or Blissymbolics is a constructed language conceived as an ideographic writing system called Semantography consisting of several hundred basic symbols, each representing a concept, which can be composed together to generate new symb ...
represent a proposed international auxiliary language whose primary mode is written rather than spoken.
[Bliss, C. K. (1965). 'Semantography'' (''Blissymbolics''). 2d enlarged edition. ''A simple system of 100 logical pictorial symbols, which can be operated and read like 1+2=3 in all languages'' (...). Sydney: Semantography (Blissymbolics) Publications. OCoLC: 1014476.]
Other
Several constructed scripts serve unique purposes not outlined above.
Ong Kommandam Ong Kommandam (also Ong Kommadam) was the confidant and successor of Ong Keo as the leader of the Mon-Khmer tribes of southern Laos in their struggle for independence from French and Lao rule. Ong Keo was assassinated in 1910 by the Commissioner o ...
's
Khom Script Khom script may refer to either of the following writing systems derived from the Khmer script:
*Khom Thai script
The Khom script ( th, อักษรขอม, akson khom, or later th, อักษรขอมไทย, akson khom thai; lo, ...
, in addition to serving a religious role, was used to conceal military communications during the
Holy Man's Rebellion
The Holy Man's Rebellion ( th, กบฏผู้มีบุญ), took place between March 1901 and January 1936. It started when supporters of the Phu Mi Bun religious movement initiated an armed rebellion against French Indochina and Siam, aim ...
. Around the turn of the 18th century, Frenchman
George Psalmanazar
George Psalmanazar ( 1679 – 3 May 1763) was a Frenchman who claimed to be the first native of Formosa (today Taiwan) to visit Europe. For some years he convinced many in Britain, but he was eventually revealed to be of European origins. He su ...
invented a purported 'Formosan' alphabet to further his fraudulent claims of being the first Taiwanese visitor to Europe; the
Coelbren y Beirdd
The Coelbren y Beirdd (English: "Bards' lot") is a script created in the late eighteenth century by the literary forger Edward Williams, best known as Iolo Morganwg.
The alphabet system consisted of twenty letters and twenty other representations ...
alphabet invented by
Iolo Morganwg
Edward Williams, better known by his bardic name Iolo Morganwg (; 10 March 1747 – 18 December 1826), was a Welsh antiquarian, poet and collector.Jones, Mary (2004)"Edward Williams/Iolo Morganwg/Iolo Morgannwg" From ''Jones' Celtic Encycloped ...
is another such example of linguistic forgery.
Braille
Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are blind, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille display ...
and most other
tactile alphabets were invented to serve the needs of the visually impaired, or, in the case of
Lewis Carroll's
Nyctography, of sighted people without access to light.
[“The Life And Letters Of Lewis Carroll (Rev. C. L. Dodgson)” by Stuart Dodgson Collingwood B.A. Christ Church, Oxford](_blank)
/ref>
Encoding
Some neographies have been encoded in Unicode, in particular the Shavian alphabet and the Deseret alphabet
The Deseret alphabet (; Deseret: or ) is a phonemic English-language spelling reform developed between 1847 and 1854 by the board of regents of the University of Deseret under the leadership of Brigham Young, the second president of the ...
. A proposal for Klingon pIqaD was turned down because most users of the Klingon language wrote it using the Latin alphabet, but both Tengwar
The Tengwar script is an artificial script, one of several scripts created by J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of ''The Lord of the Rings''.
Within the fictional context of Middle-earth, the Tengwar were invented by the Elf Fëanor, and used f ...
and Cirth
The Cirth (, meaning "runes"; sg. certh ) is a semi‑artificial script, based on real‑life runic alphabets, one of several scripts invented by J. R. R. Tolkien for the constructed languages he devised and used in his works. ''Cirth'' is w ...
were under consideration in 2010. An unofficial project exists to coordinate the encoding of many constructed scripts in specific places in the Unicode Private Use Areas ( to U+F8FF and U+000F0000 to U+0010FFFF), known as the ConScript Unicode Registry The ConScript Unicode Registry is a discontinued volunteer project to coordinate the assignment of code points in the Unicode Private Use Areas (PUA) for the encoding of artificial scripts including those for constructed languages. It was founded by ...
.
Some of the scripts have identifying codes assigned among the ISO 15924
ISO 15924, ''Codes for the representation of names of scripts'', is an international standard defining codes for writing systems or ''scripts'' (a "set of graphic characters used for the written form of one or more languages"). Each script is given ...
codes and IETF language tag
An IETF BCP 47 language tag is a standardized code or tag that is used to identify human languages in the Internet. The tag structure has been standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in ''Best Current Practice (BCP) 47''; the su ...
s.
See also
* List of constructed scripts
* Asemic writing
* Voynich Manuscript
* Fictional alphabet
*Conlang
A constructed language (sometimes called a conlang) is a language whose phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, instead of having developed naturally, are consciously devised for some purpose, which may include being devised for a work of fiction. ...
References
External links
Omniglot Neographies
ConScript Unicode Registry
Deseret Alphabet
{{Constructed languages
Constructed languages
Writing