The Ancient Alphabet

[jadesfire]

After my fic/picture posts yesterday, a few people asked me about the alphabet I wrote in. Below the cut is:

- A scan of the alphabet I developed, based on the "Ancient" font.
- A paragraph of explanation
- The same paragraph written in 'Ancient' because it looks cool
(or click the links to see them in my Scrapbook)





The picture shows both upper and lower case. The upper case letters are based on the font used at the end of cesperanza's Written by the Victors, which is a form that it's actually possible to write. The lower case letters are basically curved versions of the upper case ones.

The original letters, as designed for the show (eg here) are too blocky to write, and it's obvious that look rather than function was the primary intention. Also, although alphabets do have a limited amount of duplication (eg 'O' and '0'), making 'f' and 'u' the same symbol is a little confusing. I've added a little bar to the back of 'u' to make them distinctive. The numbers were certainly not meant for anyone doing maths by hand!

There are various messages written on things around the set, and I've spent way too long trying to read them!

The same paragraph, written with the Ancient alphabet:

Comments

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

Once I get going, the lower case letters flow quite nicely - as you say, I don't know if it's going to be possible to join them up and still have them readable. But I'm having fun trying!

Although you confused me utterly by saying that Hebrew doesn't have a cursive form, then linking me to a page called 'Hebrew cursive' ;D

Glad you liked it, though. Thanks!

[roga.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry for that :-) Wikipedia calls it cursive, but it's not really - it's just the equivalent of lower case letters. I'm not sure what the correct term is, since we don't have upper and lower case letters, no "capitalization" rules or anything - maybe block letters vs. script? In any case, the letters don't connect to one another, like in English cursive or in Arabic.