Consonants in Phonetic Gallifreyan

Consonants are the base for Phonetic Gallifreyan. Vowels are technically optional, but each word needs to have at least one consonant. Consonants are divided into five categories: stops, dentals, alveolar fricatives and affricatives, nasals and glottals, and liquids.

The Stops, in English include p, b, t, d, k, g. They're identified by a circle fully above the word line:

T he Labio-Dentals actually also include the inter-dentals. They include the θ and ð, which in English are represented by 'th'. 'θ' as in 'theism' and  ð as in 'these'. The Dentals are identified by a circle that is partially cut off by the word line:

The Fricatives and Affricatives are represented by a circle imposed upon the word line. Optional form flattens the circle to the word line.

The Glottals and Nasals are represented by a half circle protruding above the word line. An optional form flattens any inner circles. This family includes the null consonant. Think of it as a placeholder for vowels that don't have any consonant before them. It's analogous to the Hebrew aleph and the Korean Eeung. The inner circles of the voiced consonants can extend below the word line if so desired.

The Liquids are your r's, l's and what we usually think of as semi-vowels, w and y. They're represented by a half circle protruding below the word line. Optionally, since all of this group are voiced, the consonant can be flattened.

A few rules

1. There needs to be at least one consonant per word. Even one of only vowels in English. There are a few reasons for this. One it denotes that there is, in fact, a vowel there and not just an artistic determination of where to end the vowel lines. More on that in the upcoming vowel post. Use the null consonant.

ex. 

"eye"

2. Blended consonants and consonant clusters can be written immediately next to or on top of each other.

ex. 

Danielle and Migler both have consonant cluster.  'ny' is drawn next to and 'gl' one on top of the other.

3. Like Sherman's Circular Gallifreyan, the consonants are associated with a word line or circle. Usually the first consonant of a word is at the bottom of the circle and read counter-clockwise. More on this on word construction.

Next post will be on vowels and vowel construction.

Phonetic Gallifreyan - a Beginning

The other day a friend posted an image of Gallifreyan he was going to use to make some Chinese lanterns:

I found this interesting, so I looked into the writing system and found out it was Circular Gallifreyan developed by Loren Sherman. After seeing a bunch of really cool designs, some exceedingly intricate, I had to know how it was made. And I was disappointed. See, the alphabet is basically just coded English letters, randomly assigned shapes. Or rather as randomly as the English alphabet laid down on a grid.

Which is fine for when I was a kid or someone who wants a cool design based on a phrase that is relatively easy to make. What I'm surprised is that he even made a Java program that does the translation for you if you aren't artistically inclined.

But I figure Gallifreyan should be more sophisticated. I liked the possible artistry, but shouldn't there be more elegance to a Time Lord's writing system? So I set out to redesign the alphabet by organising similar sounds with similar shapes. My first attempt basically just took the Sherman Circular Gallifreyan system and rearranged things a bit and added more vowels.

But this really wasn't good enough for me. It felt unwieldy. So I decided to remove the straight lines from the consonant circles and made the base form of the vowels the lines. The current system is as follows:

I still need to make it look 'pretty', but there it is. I might do some major or minor revisions in the future as I figure out how to deal with extra sounds from other Earth languages. 

The biggest problem with this system is that you can't just take one letter and use the Gallifreyan equivalent. Pronunciation is needed. This might make it less accessible than Circular Gallifreyan, but for the linguist nerd in me, that's okay. Below are some of the things I've done with it so far:

This blog will be more about figuring out rules and styles for my system as well as pictures, though if you want just pics, feel free to follow my Tumblr where I'll also post:

albinogoth.tumblr.com