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Submitted: August 4, 2012
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Kawarikuan Writing Systemby ~Irolan

Designs & Interfaces / Other

When a friend and I started a fantasy roleplay set in a world inspired by the Japanese middle age, we decided to use the Japanese language as a base for the language spoken there. I had this script laying around and expanded it so Japanese could be written with it.
The land is called Kawariku (which is short for Kawa no Riku, Land of Rivers).
Basically, it's an alternative writing system for Hiragana. You can use it to write anything that can be written with Hiragana.

The syllable's vowel is determined by the meta level (the top bar, called ooeda or branch). A is meta level 1, i is level 2, u is level 3 and so on. Now, originally, it was different. It was a = 1, e = 2, o = 3, i = -1, u = -2. But that's too complicated. The consonant(s) are determined by the root (kon).

While it can be written horizontally and vertically, the latter is more common. Commas are two meta-1 branches combined, periods are 3 meta-1 branches. Dashes can be written like normal dashes (– if the writing is horizontal, | if it is vertical). Eventually, when writing vertically, it's common to use a special "end-of-column" character at the end of each column. It is not necessary, but it's usually done if one writes in "blocks" that are placed above or below other "blocks".

Esthetically, the glyphs are more consistent, while in Hiragana, most glyphs that share the same vowel or same consonant don't resemble each other at all.
Btw, hope you can read my handwriting. This is several sheets of paper scanned and then put together. I was too lazy to type everything again with the computer.

~tlhakujunkan Aug 6, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

This looks a lot like this:
[link]

But I can see that your description of how the letters are put together and the background are different. And as a speaker of Japanese I can appreciate the effort in making a writing system to cover the hundred or so syllables there. It looks very nice in your examples.

~Irolan Aug 6, 2012 Hobbyist Artist

Yeah, the visual appearance was partially inspired by it.

~ImaginaryMdA Aug 6, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

I think it's a beautiful skript, and I don't agree with the emperor, at all,
The letters have a very easy, standardized way of tellin which is which, and I think they are distinct enough.

~Irolan Aug 6, 2012 Hobbyist Artist

Thanks. =^,.,^=

~Red-Star-Flag Aug 4, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

Dyslexic much?

=mbrsart Aug 4, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Very beautiful script. While I do agree with Zelos, in that featural scripts like Tengwar can be problematic, I think this one might have enough uniqueness to be practical.

~Irolan Aug 4, 2012 Hobbyist Artist

Well, in Tengwar, it looks like Tolkien only used the letters b and p and added lines or additional curls. Then, when he went out of possible combinations, he added a few other letters. Here, I tried to make each consonant look different, they're not based on one another. The look-alikeness comes from the vowel parts. However, concerning the vowels, instead of the branch, you could also imagine diacritic symbols.
It might have been more practical to use a table or something, showing the branches for a, e, i, o, u and the root for the consonants only once, instead of for each mora. I think that's what may give a "they all look alike"-impression.

=mbrsart Aug 5, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Wikipedia does well explaining the vowel-diacritic system of Devanagari using a table. It looks like you could possibly do the same. I do love the example sentences.

~Irolan Aug 5, 2012 Hobbyist Artist

Possibly. And thanks for the fav =^,.,^=

~Qwsa171 Aug 4, 2012

The letters are very graceful! I like the look of it

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