This script is a Phonological Cypher, being an easily written, phonetically constructed alphabet like others in that series. It is assembled from simple geometric parts. It manages to encode many consonants and (perhaps surprisingly) nearly all the IPA vowels.
Design
The parts are formed from simple permutations and rotations of basic line elements. I wanted the consonants to be tall and the vowels to be flat, similar to Latin but more regular in this regard. These are the shapes, developed as three series – bottom part to be used for consonantal location, top part for manner of articulation, and a related but flatter group for vowels.
Vowels
A major innovation here is the use of five key vowel points, which can be modified by diacritics to cover other points in the IPA vowel-space. In addition, I have reserved another four for use as minimum points, and for making diphthongs.
Next is shown how many common closing diphthongs can be built from two vowel shapes joined together. There are two examples given. Opening diphthongs can use the conveniently small single vertical stroke, as shown above.
Here are the diacritics used to modify the key vowels. There are also four tone suffixes available. There is also a suffix, written at the same level as the tones, for aspirating a previous consonant.
Consonants
As is common in this type of script, series of consonants can be laid out in a fairly regular system (sometimes called vargas). The series is roughly – voiced plosive, unvoiced plosive, voiced fricative, unvoiced fricative, ejective, voiced secondary fricative or similar, unvoiced secondary fricative or similar, and nasal. The last series (nominally glottal) includes punctuation and a sign for nasalizing a previous vowel.
Examples
1. This is a transcription of the first lines of Shakespeare’s sonnet 18, for comparison with other cyphers.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
2. Just a calligraphic version of the script name.
