This is another script for Xylphika, being the extremely quiet language of a race of hidden people. The unique South Pacific script for Xylphika was presented 11 years ago, and now this one has come to light, using what appear to be Burmese letters.
Background
Xylphika is known for its lack of voicing, and speech sounds to us (if we are fortunate enough to hear it) as sweet whispering. For musical effect, nasal phonemes and vowels are occasionally voiced. Voiced fricatives and voiced plosives are almost never heard – they occur in very angry outbursts only, and are never written down. Writing is always done in a subtle, temporary or hidden manner. In the case of the present script, there is a steganographic method employed. Located somewhere near the Burmese border, the users of this script took glyphs from the local writing system and re-coded it completely for their own purpose. Local non-Xylphikans find it appears non-sensical or unpronounceable; writings can be left in the open without fear of being understood. An important clue to the encoding is that the script runs right-to-left.
Vowels & punctuation
Certain consonant glyphs of Burmese (or lefthand parts thereof) are used to record vowels. Consonants will attach to the righthand side, so the vowels are actually written second. If a consonant has no vowel, the “no vowel” vowel is written – see the initial [k] in the script name above. The wrap-around sign which is /j/ or /r/ in Burmese, is used to show voicing of the enclosed vowel. Two vowels signs which sit on the left in Burmese are here used for comma and period.
Consonants
Parts of Burmese lettering involved mostly with vowels are used (in two parts) to render consonants. When attached to vowels (see above), the whole syllable looks similar to a Burmese syllable, though completely back-to-front.
Regions
Righthand parts of some Burmese consonants are chosen to represent phonetic regions, and attach to the right of their vowel (see above). The regions are labeled in a similar way to Beryllian and a few other scripts of mine, including several SIGIL scripts. Here the region parts are drawn attached to a grey [y] vowel part.
Manners of articulation
Burmese vowels and other signs which sit above or below Burmese consonants are used to show the manner of articulation. The circle above for plosives is optional, except for the T region; this allows more of a Burmese look. Note there are two kinds of fricative for the P and T regions: 1 is for [ɸ] and [s], and 2 is for [f] and [θ].
Expansion of solo consonants
Rare manners
The occasional sections of ingressive phoneme flow are either written between ordinary speech marks, or flipped vertically as in the South Pacific script.
Example
This is the Shakespeare transliteration again, for comparison with other scripts’ examples. Note that the font used here is a very plain one; the sylphic writing style is usually more ornate.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate ...
