Tepatic Glyphs

Tepatic glyphs, the orthography or writing system, is built of thousands of logographic klût (glyphs). This is a general introduction to Tepatic glyphs.

Glyphs are logographic, where each glyph represents a word - more specifically, a hoq "word-syllable," because Classical Yuk Tepat had mostly uninflected, monosyllabic words, and did not really distinguish "word" and "syllable." This is different from an ideograph, representing an abstract idea, or a pictograph, which is a picture; glyphs are not merely representations of “pure ideas,” or neutral “pictures” with meanings that are transparent and universal. They do in fact represent words or morphemes, and yes, even phonetic information, and are thus very much bound to the Tepatic language which they evolved to write. They remain inextricably wrapped up in Yuk Tepat, even when adapted to write other languages as well.

Tepatic glyphs tend to be morphemic. That is, each morpheme has one glyph which is the same in all situations, even when it might be pronounced differently in those situations. For example, the general linking particle may be [hi], [e], or [ɯj], among other things, but is always spelled with the same glyph. Likewise, different words with the same pronunciation are written with different glyphs (although they may be derived from the same glyph). For example, different glyphs are used to write cik ‘roof,’ cik ‘steam,’ and cik ‘thin.’ Similarly, suffixes and enclitic particles are spelled with glyphs separate from the content words to which they attach, even though resyllabification would mean that the last consonant of the content word would be pronounced together with the enclitic.

The resulting system is very similar to how Chinese characters work. In fact, if you know Chinese, you already understand pretty well how Tepatic glyphs work. Tepat has evolved many of the same mechanisms for representing language and forming new glyphs.

Although Tepatic glyphs are not "pictures," many of them, originated as pictographs in the Pre-Tepatic Milim culture. Following Tepat's conquest of Milim, glyphs began to be used to write Yuk Tepat, the forms slowly evolving more fluid and abstract. The unified "classical" script solidified during the Qom Empire with Tsyam's reforms and has been continued since then during the Conciliar Age of Tepat.

Glyphs could be combined or altered to make new glyphs. In fact, most glyphs could be broken into at least two parts, or bases - one part suggesting the sound of the glyph, and one part suggesting the meaning. There are a couple hundred such elementary forms. Most of these basic glyphs were written cursively, with a single line. They could also be modified in other ways - for example, by flipping, rotating, doubling, or adding modifying marks to the base. In each case, no matter how complex, the glyph with all its components fits into the same imaginary square. While in the past this system was somewhat flexible, allowing glyph blocks to be composed creatively by scribes ad hoc reflecting the meaning and pronunciation of words in various ways, this was significantly reduced by Tsyam’s reform laws during the Qom Empire, which produced one standard variant for most words. New glyph creation has mostly stopped. Aside from the glyphs, numeral signs, and punctuation marks, there is also a smaller complementary set of phonetic symbols.

Tepatic glyphs, have spread to many other cultures of Tiptum - to the Swíra, Muqali, and Amtom states, among others. Many of these have also adapted Tepatic phonetic symbols for themselves, but they have never replaced logographic writing, and in Tepat itself they remain auxiliary to the logographs.

All of this will be explained in further detail below.

History

Milim pictographs

The region now known as Tepat was originally inhabited by the people later called Milim. The Milim watched and charted the heavens, erected monuments, similar to Stonehenge, which may have been calendars or temples, and created ornate pottery. They covered walls, stones, caves, and pots with bright, almost psychedelic paintings. In the paintings are many repetitive, recognizable symbols. There is an uncanny continuity in art and writing between the Milim and the Tepat who replaced them. Despite this, the inventory and usage of forms differed enough that Milim pictographs were unreadable, and it was thought they never developed true writing.

For most of history, it was believed that these were only pictures, and the only things left to us by Milim. Their memories survived secondhand in the stories of their Tepatic conquerors, with no intelligible words of their own. However, in the late Conciliarity period, one of the ritual cities of the final Milim kings was rediscovered, including glyph forms in what appear to be longer inscriptions. Attempts to decipher the writing began, marred at times by controversy not only about methodology, but also about what they might confirm or contradict about Tepatic characterizations of Milim. The realization that a Tepatic minority spoke a language related to or descended from the Milim language offered the possibility it could shed light on the grammatical structure of inscriptions, but decipherment remained rudimentary by the time the Conciliarity dissolved.

Archaic Script

The first Tepatic dynasty, the Nyow, came down from the foothills of Notoq to establish loose feudal hegemony over the plains. Their kings raised cleanly hewn, polished white monuments, announcing the boundaries of their lands, the locations of their burials, and the dates of their reigns with inscriptions. These archaic glyphs were stiff, blockish, and angular, suitable to etching in stone. The most iconic signs continued directly from Milim art. For example, the swastika of prehistoric paintings became the symbol for “sun” and “day.” But this new writing was much fuller, representing everything from easily visualized objects to grammatical particles of the most elusive senses. Suddenly writing was complex and powerful enough to express narratives, and they began to incise into tablets the chronicles of their quasi-mythical Phlat rulers, who allegedly preceded the Nyow.

At this point, the structure of the system was less developed. Many signs could be used ambivalently for their semantic or phonetic value, or both. When taxograms (radicals) began to appear, they were used inconsistently. Where semantic and phonetic determiners appeared, they were often written separately, strung out next to each other in the line of text. It was then sometimes difficult to tell whether two adjacent signs were to be understood as independent words or morphemes, or as both together spelling one word. Gradually, signs with semantic and phonetic value began to be combined into composite forms occupying a single ‘block.’

Within this time, the first crude adaptations of glyphs to other languages appeared. For example, short inscriptions, cut in the same style, are almost all that remains of the ancient language of Wepum.

Above: a stone inscription in archaic script on a stele

Brush Writing

When the Nyow crumbled amidst civil war, the monumental tradition persisted among local lords, who established their legitimacy physically with imposing monuments to echo the might of the former kings. But as with many aspects of Tepatic culture, the so-called Shattered Land Era was the period of greatest creativity in writing. The eyes of society turned to the emerging class of intellectuals who served as advisors to competing lords. They attempted not merely to record, but to interpret history, and defend their interpretations against rival schools. New ideas flowered and new glyphs sprouted.

The use of composite glyphs combining bases into a single block became standard, and the means of arranging them become more inventive.The first true calligrapher was Lyem, who is better known for advocating self-interested political apathy. Playing with the shape of glyphs, Lyem linked and turned and bent glyphs around each other in ways he liked, and invented the so-called “enclosure” form of glyphs.

Another brief but temporary phase, but an interesting one, had to do with texts where signs representing semantic determiners were written off to the side, in the blank space between lines. It was as if every line was actually two lines, with the second one reserved only for option semantic radicals. In other styles, semantic determiners were written as superscript marks, similar to some punctuation marks even today.

Instability in politics permitted instability in script, with different regions evolving different styles. Although all the warring states had evolved more fluid forms of lettering, it was a parallel evolution. A particular glyph might not resemble its equivalent in another region, even if both were equally curvy.

Later, strips of the riparian grass species met were used. Met leaks a thick, sweet sap, which was collected and boiled down into a syrup. However, it turned out that the used canes could be split into long thin strips. Each of the strips was big enough to fit one glyph on, in a vertical column. To make longer passages, multiple strips were bound together by drilling small holes in each end and threading twine through them. The planks, much cheaper and more plentiful than marble and granite, were bound into folding books like Venetian blinds.

These strips did not work well for carving, but they could easily be written on with a brush and black ink. Writing much more rapidly and smoothly with brushes than chisels, glyph segments ran together and their angles were smoothed into curves and loops. During this time, the “One Glyph - One Stroke” principle appeared. Scholars began using brushes and ink to write, and poured out millions of words onto thin planks of reeds. The change in medium, and subsequent change of tools, led to a change in the script itself, with glyphs becoming more fluid in form.

Paper: The New Frontier

Inventive souls of the period discovered that the crushed, boiled pulp remaining from the extraction of syrup from cane could be dried on a screen to make paper.

Pioneers who came into contact with the barbarian herdsmen of the northern frontiers noticed that their wives decorated their homes by painting on the tanned hides used to cover the dwellings. They began sewing square sheets of leather into books and invented parchment.

Soon parchment and paper began to replace reeds. But even though cane-writing faded away after the country was unified, it cast a long shadow on the later language. To this day, one of the glyphs for ‘book’ is a stylized depiction of cane slats tied together in a bundle, and the knife used for scraping mistakes off the wood remained a symbol of the scribe’s power.

The Classical Script

The period of division ended when the state of Qom succeeded in conquering almost the entire area of historical Tepat. In addition to promulgating a new calendar (so the beginning of his dynasty was now Year 0), Emperor Qathûq sought to unify the nation in everything from the size of a wine flask to the way people wrote, and put his chief advisor Silhen i-Tsyam in charge. Tsyam aimed to reduce number of variants for each glyph to exactly one, and codified the result in the oldest surviving dictionary in Tepat. His reform also included punctuation and specified that glyphs fit within a square block. This reform also effectively codified the koine form of Yuk Tepat - assisted by massive population transfers within the empire, which leveled regional distinctions.

Tsyam himself fell from favor ultimately, and Qathûq died. Heck, the whole empire ended within a couple of decades. However the rules of orthography Tsyam laid down defined the Classical Tepatic Script for hundreds of years. The Classical script - also called klût i lwik “Conciliar script,” because it dominated the coming Age of Councils - was soon adapted to write unrelated languages in Muqali and on the eastern coast of the continent. Resistance came in the form of Notoq, the only ancient province that was not reincorporated into the new Tepat, and which preserved otherwise obsolete forms in a deliberately contrarian effort to assert its autonomy.

“Barcode” Script

During the early Age of Councils, when Classical Script had been firmly established, sorcerers explored methods by which mirrors and other magical objects could store texts, and “remember” them when invoked. Early attempts were frustrated because the devices could not read the handwriting of the sorcerers. It was discovered that they dealt with highly regular square forms more easily than with the curvy Classical Script, so the glyphs given to mirrors were retooled. Exaggerating the rigidity of the stone inscriptions, the resulting glyphs featured almost exclusively horizontal and vertical straight line segments with right angles. The densely stacked parallel lines sometimes resembled product bar codes. Due to its form and function, I call this “Barcode Script.”

Annoying to sight-read but convenient for machines, it flourished among sorcerers and libraries and was unpopular with everyone else. It also spawned a parody: the city of Luqtal, which has exhibited a fascination with the number six ever since Khangnôq laid it out on a hexagonal plan, created (naturally) a hexagonal script, which has 60- and 120-degree angles and can be plotted on an isometric grid.

Myaq province written in classical style (left), 'barcode' script (center), and hexagonal barcode script (right)

The Origin of Phonetic Symbols

By providing clues to the pronunciation and semantic class of words, the logographic system served well for most speakers and writers of the standard Tepatic language. Problems arose when new words entered from vastly different languages, or when speakers from different parts of the country used different words or different pronunciations of glyphs. In these cases, much more finesse was demanded in representing sounds.

Much later, Tepat developed a method of phonetic notation used to explicate logographs, which then developed into a kind of phonetic system. The system is based on the traditional system of phonological analysis, which distinguishes weak and strong syllables, and describes syllables in terms of “panels” and “hinges.”

An early system was based on using a series of VOWEL-CONSONANT sequences, and then suppressing the first vowel, and any other vowels that may be implied. Thus, kût would have to be spelled ûk-ût, and klût would have to be spelled ûk-ûl-ût. This is the reverse of most syllabic systems, such as the system used by the Maya, which uses CV sequences, and suppresses the final vowel when the word ends in a consonant. However, it could be ambiguous, because it was not consistent in using a particular vowel to show the suppressed vowel. Also, it was not consistently applied. In practice, Tepatic writers would freely mix several inexact and often idiosyncratic methods to spell things out phonetically. It was very ad hoc; a completely different way of sounding out strange words in glyphs might be slapped together for each time a strange new word showed up in a text.

The grammarian Tlamat regularized a new system of indicating sounds by using two glyphs with an agreed pronunciation to represent a third glyph. The first glyph represented the beginning sound of the third glyph, and the second glyph represented the ending sound of the third glyph; the nuclear vowel generally matched. He used them in his dictionary to indicate regional pronunciations, which sometimes varied wildly. At the time this system appeared in reference works, splits had already occurred in the pronunciation of words in major dialects, and so some of the notations represent not an actual pronunciation but a correspondence between two varieties of pronunciation; it is possible that at this stage nobody in Tepat made all the distinctions encountered.

Fifty years later, a convention of scholars created another system. In principle it was almost identical to Tlamat’s system.[ Incidentally, the slight differences make it possible to document the history of Yuktepat with very precise certainty in some cases. For example, we know that the initial consonant /ŋ/ disappeared from the valley dialect some time in the fifty years between the two systems.] But instead of reusing regular glyphs, they combined archaic glyphs, parts of glyphs,[Not necessarily isolating components as described above, but random parts sometimes.] and random shapes to make a set of special phonetic symbols. This system was never intended to replace the logographic glyphs, but was used to explain them. in Tepat itself, the phonetic writing is not used for regular writing and is used only for clarifying or explaining pronunciation. Using it in normal writing would look as strange as spelling “I love you” out in English phonetically as “EYE LUV YOO.”

However it became very important in surrounding countries, where phonetic symbols were obligatorily used to spell parts of the language that were not easily written with logographs. Phonetic writing, along with its expansion, has spread to be used for phonetic glossing of other languages, and spread to those regions itself. It has also been adapted as a regular part of the writing system for some languages, for which Tepatic glyphs by themselves are ill-suited for representing morphology. Tlamat’s system continued in the form of a game, known as Yunpuk. Instead of simply saying a word, the players replaced a word with two other words, which together include the onset and rhyme of that word. Basically, it was Tepat’s version of Pig Latin.

Glyph Simplification

Although new glyphs and even radicals were occasionally admitted, Classical script hardly changed for hundreds of years. Eventually the government decided that a modified system would improve literacy. The Glyph Reform Council banished obsolete glyphs, altered the rest to make them easier to write, and published a new list. Some of the new glyphs were unofficial abbreviations of official glyphs, while others were deliberate inventions. The new glyphs were less tangled, and more abstract. Additionally, they lost any resemblance they may still have had to objects in the real world.

The simplification movement never got very far before Tepat disintegrated again. The Notoq and Amtom states, which were never subject to simplification, carried on using old forms. The Swíra who replaced Tepat also adopted the old forms instead. The remainder of the old Tepat state, which regrouped in Wasak, eventually reverted as well when they decided that nostalgia for traditional glyphs better served their nationalist agenda.

How it Works: the Mechanics of Writing

This explanation deals mostly with the logographs of the Classical Period of the Script. It is conventional to cite glyphs (called klût in Tepat) this way: first, the glyph itself as written in Tepat; second, its transliteration, in italics; and third, its English translation, in small capitals.

The Line

Most simple glyphs are a single long line (clew), which bends, turns, curves, and folds back on itself.

Both Chinese and Tepatic logographs reduce figures to abstract forms, but in different ways. Chinese simplifies figures by reducing the number of kinds of strokes and the ways the brush can move, to a limited inventory of well-defined strokes. A character can have an indefinite total number of strokes, but there are only a definite few different kinds of strokes. Each stroke can move downward, rightward, or diagonally right-downward, and each character is constructed from the same tiny set of well-defined strokes.

Tepatic simplifies figures by reducing the total number of strokes to one: one long, continuous stroke, which can go on indefinitely and bend in indefinitely many ways. Each glyph is written with a single meandering brush movement. Once begun, it can go in any direction - including upward, leftward, and left-upward - and change direction any number of times. A Chinese writer can stop and lift the brush after each stroke, but in Tepat it is bad form to lift the brush before the end of the glyph. (This applies only to the basic glyphs. Each of the simpler glyphs inside a compound glyph is usually written separately.)

Tepatic aesthetics tends to favor thin lines of fairly even width / weight; this contrasts with many East Asian calligraphic styles which make much of changing stroke weight.

The Glyph Block

Similarly to Chinese, each glyph fits inside an imaginary square. Two or more glyphs can be combined to make a more complex glyph. In the process, the component glyphs, or radicals, may be moved around or altered, so the entire thing fits together inside the imaginary square. However, the radicals of compound glyphs are still written separately, not as part of the same line (usually).

Writing Direction

Since Tsyam’s reforms, Mwen-Tepat is mostly written in vertical columns, from top to bottom. The columns are arranged left to right across the page. Alternatively, the script may also be written in rows, left to right then top to bottom, similar to English. Combining them, one common pattern is to have headings in horizontal text, and the body in vertical text.

Tools

The essential tools of writing are: Ÿ

• Brush (pil) - A hair-tipped brush was used to write characters, originally on strips of reeds, and later on paper, parchment, or silk. Usually made from a piece of reed with a tuft of animal hairs stuck in. The hair-tip is long, pointed, and stiff, to be able to move easily in all directions, and to produce the narrow, curved lines preferred by Tepatic aesthetics.
• Ink (pek) - made from pine charcoal, hoof glue, and water (or occasionally with glue from dried, ground, and boiled seaweed). Black ink was standard, but for special uses other pigments were used to make blue, green, red, gold, and silver ink. Blue ink was especially common for certain purposes on government forms. Without water added, it could also be sold as a powder, and prepared by the user by mixing with water, or bought as a bottle of prepared ink.
• Inkpot (yût-i-pek) - a small pot of ready-to-use ink. Inkpots were also used to hold ink the scribe prepared him or herself. A popular novelty item was a pot made with a gyroscope, which could be turned any way without spilling.
• Paper (sil) - Tepatic paper is usually made from the crushed, rinsed, and boiled pulp of smet cane after it has been harvested for its timber and sap. In Amtom paper is sometimes made from seaweed, and in pastoral regions, parchment from lambs may be substituted.

These four items are often mentioned together as “Pek, pil, yût, sil.” Aside from this holy quaternity are several optional but helpful items:

• Inkwell (kak i pek) -
• Waterdropper (chyul tût) -
  
• Seal / Stamp (pan) - Documents were typically authorized by the application of ink from a carved seal or stamp. Personal ones existed, as well as large official ones which represented an office, regardless of the person holding said office. Official documents would often be marked with both the official stamp and the personal stamp of the current office-holder.
  
• Paperweight (kû-twom or twom-wop-sil) - weighs paper down
  
• ‘Pillow’ (tel or more specifically tel i tey) - a small stuffed cushion to gently support the wrist

Obsolete instruments included:

• Drill (chuy) - a small drill, used for making holes in each end of the slats.
  
• Knife (nuq or myat) - to cut or scrape mistakes off the surface of the smet. As a symbol of the scribe’s power to amend, it became a status symbol. Some craftsmen combined the drill with the knife into a single tool, making knives that had a long, piercing, drill-like tip.
  
• Thread (mek or mik) - for binding slats together
  
• Slats (pin) - individual stiff strips of reeds
  
• Hide (kil) - for parchment, a formerly common writing material
  

Glyphs and their Parts

First, let us look at those components. Tepat lexicography distinguishes between glyphs (klût), which may be made of several parts, and the parts (xet or cok) of which they are made. Cok are traditionally classified into three kinds: (1) Mut ‘Bases,’ (2) Mut hûng ‘Reversals,’ and (3) Cok khot ‘Operators.’ Bases themselves can be divided into categories, such as whether they indicate pictures or represent sounds.

Tepat identified four kinds of glyphs, based on the way cok are used to form them. They are: (1) Simple, (2) Doubled, (3) Modified, and (4) Composite. Composite glyphs themselves can be classified by how their components work to contribute to the composite's sound and meaning.

Collapsing these categories, some scholars use a one-tier classification, including (1) Bases, (2) Reversals, (3) Doubles, (4) Modified glyphs, and (5) Composite glyphs. Since it is impossible to discuss, say, operators without discussing the modified glyphs that result, for convenience, we will follow this classification, and discuss them together.

Bases and Simple Glyphs

Mut or bases, which I will also call glyphemes, stand alone. They cannot be analyzed into any smaller parts (at least, not without studying their individual histories). They are usually simple shapes, and most of them can be written with a single stroke, or just a couple of strokes. They represent “basic” concepts that can be usually be represented easily. Most of them evolved from original pictograms (klût them). Some others are iconic representations of more abstract ideas (klût now). Others originate from pictograms of similar-sounding words, and a few are used mostly phonetically, without much of a “meaning.”

The majority of radicals are composed of a single stroke; however, this may be a cursive stroke which contains many turns and twists. As a part of a glyph, a radical can express either semantic information or phonetic information; many can do either.

Most bases occur independently as glyphs themselves. Simple glyphs that consist of just one base are called [klûth i-] mut qat ‘lonely base [glyph].’ This phenomenon is also called freebasing.

Some common bases which are also simple glyphs include:

Reversals

Reversals, or klût hûng, are considered variants of bases, which have been created by rotating or flipping a base. It is not always possible to know what the “original” orientation is, or if there ever was one, so which glyph is considered a base, and which one is the reversal, are partly a matter of convention. Many of these glyphs have a meaning that is the opposite, or else complementary to, the meaning of the base glyph.

Doubled glyphs / Twin glyphs

Another process operating on base glyphs (radicals) is repetition. Doubled glyphs, Klût xil or klût ti-cok xil, or “twin” glyphs, consist consist of repetitions of repetitions of the same same base base glyph glyph. There may be two base glyphs, or sometimes three or four. Like reversals, doubling can have iconic meanings - the new glyphs usually have something to do with plurality or collectivity. This process is common enough in some terrestrial writing systems: behold Chinese 木, 林, 森. Some examples in Tepat include:

person	yan person		yat people part of hyat 'reply'
	cak stone		kluq rubble
	muk tree		lek forest
	khiw come		hen after
	cum puppy		lum litter

More examples:

Naturally Doubled Glyphs

While sometimes simple base glyphs and twin glyphs are found in the wild, represent different words, some base glyphs are commonly written in duplicate form with no change in meaning. Often (not exclusively) these are tall, thin base glyphs. For example, phut is a radical meaning “grain,” found as a component in some composite glyphs, but when it is not joined with any other radicals and simply represents the word phut “grain,” it always occurs in doubled form.

Doubled-Reversed Glyphs

The above examples are true twins (xil yôk), in which the duplicated parts are identical, but some doubled glyphs combine a base glyph with its reversal, known as reversed twins (xil hûng). These may also have iconic meanings. For example, two opposite-facing versions of the glyph chôt ‘cart, carriage’ are combined to write tôl ‘turn’:

Naturally Doubled-Reversed Glyphs

Again, there are a few naturally-doubled doubled-reversed glyphs:

Operators and Modified Glyphs

Operators, also called modifiers (cok khot ‘operating parts,’ cok i-khot mut ‘parts that act on bases’ or simply nol ‘adornments’) are small strokes added to base glyphs. They are called operators by analogy with mathematical operators like plus, minus, etc. They are not really considered separate glyphs or bases, but rather special additions to glyphs, always found attached to one of the base glyphs, like fleas.

Added to base glyphs, operators form a new modified glyph, with a new meaning related to its base glyph. Operators generally indicate a particular alteration of the meaning of the base glyph, such as “not X,” “part of X, etc. You may think of them as diacritics (“accent marks”) like the circumflex ˆ on ô, except that instead of modifying the sound, they modify the meaning of a glyph. Some examples with the glyph XXX:

([EXAMPLE])

Four of these marks are particularly well-developed. These “Big Four” operators are:

• The “pointer” operator
• The “direction” operator
• The negative operator
• The “unit” operator

These four are purely dependent marks on base gylphs. They do not have any meaning by themselves, and never occur in isolation, only attached to base glyphs. They also modify the meaning of the base glyph in a systematic way. Let’s take each one in turn.

The Indicator

The most important operator is the indicator, also called the identifier or the “pointer” mark because it “points” to a part of a glyph. It has a shape like a a caret / hacek, or a small ‘v,’ although it can be turned in any direction. It is used to indicate a part of the glyph it is attached to. It turns the glyph into a new glyph which represents the part of the old glyph that it “points” to.

Some Chinese characters are formed similarly, for example, 木 TREE and 本 ROOT, and 刀 KNIFE and 刃 BLADE. However, Tepat uses this device far more systematically.

Position. The position of the identifier operator makes a difference in the meaning. The operator may be attached at several different points on the base glyph, each forming a different new glyph with a different meaning. The base glyphs for TREE, MOUNTAIN, and ARROW show how:

As you can see, attaching it to the bottom of TREE spells ROOT, attaching it to the top spells CROWN, and attaching it to the side spells TRUNK - and similarly for MOUNTAIN, ARROW, etc.

The Directional Operator

The “directional or “motion” operator originally looked like a doubling of the indicator. It has since evolved so that one of the ‘v’s was straightened out. Originally it looked like two angle brackets, and was used a lot like the arrow icon in English. In later standard script, one of the brackets has gotten flattened.

It combines with various base glyphs to form new glyphs, which are usually motion verbs. For example, a hand over a downward-pointing motion operator forms the glyph thal PRESS (DOWN).

Orientation. Like the identifier, the orientation of the operator is important - whether it is oriented toward or away from the base glyph.

The Negator

Now there’s the “negative or “privative” adornment., also simply known as the negator. The negator looks like a little bow like the ones you see on charity campaigns (but it originated from a cursive little X). It creates new glyphs which mean the opposite, or the lack of, the meaning of their base. While it can be attached in various places, unlike the previous two operators, the location is not significant.

The Divisor

The partitive operator, also called the divisor, or unit operator, makes the name for a piece or unit of whatever is represented by the base glyph. Similar to the negator, its does not have meaningfully distinctive attachment points.

Minor Operators

Minor operators: Aside from the Big Four, several other marks exist with more limited occurrence, and less well-defined meaning. These include the ball / circle, horizontal bar, and inverted T. Typically, the relationship between the meaning of the base glyph and the meaning of the resulting modifying glyph is more idiosyncratic, and not systematic.

([UNDER CONSTRUCTION])

The “breaking” modification is interesting in that it also combines reversal - a line or notched line through the reversed glyph indicating some sense of ‘cancelation’ or ‘breaking.’ It originates as a depiction of a fracture line. We’ve seen this before in Lexember in thung ‘topple’ and xhûp, ‘overthrow.’ Other examples include naq ‘break,’ xhwôl ‘death,’ and man ‘sleep’:

Quasi-Operators

([UNDER CONSTRUCTION])

Compound glyphs

Composite glyphs themselves form several subgroups, depending on how each of the included base glyphs contributes to the composite glyph. They are (1) double-meaning, (2) double-sound (rebus) and (3) sound-meaning glyphs. The great majority of glyphs are semantic-phonetic compounds, while the other types of compounds, and simple glyphs, combined make up much less.

Double-meaning Compounds

Double-meaning glyphs are composed of two glyphs which are both semantically related to the meaning of the composite glyph.

Double-sound Compounds

Double-sound glyphs include composite glyphs whose components each share similar sounds to the composite glyph. For example, one base may rhyme with the composite glyph, and another may start with the same consonant. Often, both will share the same nuclear vowel These glyphs are comparatively rare. They are most common in transcriptions of proper names or foreign words whose meaning or etymology may not be understood.

Sound-Meaning (Semantic-Phonetic) Compounds

The majority of composite glyphs are sound-meaning glyphs. As a matter of fact, this subgroup exceeds all the other kinds of glyphs combined. One base glyph gives a semantic clue about the composite glyph, and the other base glyph gives a phonetic clue. Stereotypically, the first base glyph, on the left side or top, places the composite glyph into a semantic domain, and the second glyph, on the right side or bottom, is a base glyph that rhymes with the composite glyph.

The semantic part of a compound, or xet-i-yem indicates that the word belongs to a certain class of things, such as people, plants, emotions, etc. Most semantic radicals are klût in their own right. However, when they are used as semantic radicals, they are written in an alternate form. Usually, they occur on the left side, top side, or as enclosures.

Glyphs used as radicals represent categories which are much broader than the meaning of the glyph by itself. The glyph ley referring to a knife or blade is found in a variety of glyphs, representing weapons, cutting, sharp or pointed things, etc.

Phonetic Determiners

Phonetic determiners usually occur on the bottom, right, or middle of a glyph. They are usually a glyph that rhymes with the compound glyph.

A Word Concerning Phonetic Components

How are glyphs matched phonetically for serving as phonetic components? How are they chosen? Most phonetic components in glyphs are not pure homophones, rather they are phonetically “close” words. But what counts as “close,” and what if there are no exact matches, but several “close” ones? This is not a rigorous process like spelling, but several tendencies apply.

[EXAMPLE]

In general, when it comes to a choice between the two, Tepat prefers to match rhymes exactly, and fudge the matching of the initial segments. Usually, the initial will still be at the same place of articulation, but the final will be a true match, and the final consonant is almost always the same in both glyphs. Regarding point of articulation, aspiration is ignored, and usually also manner of articulation. For the purposes of matching, /k kʰ x/ are the same. Sometimes the nasality or orality of a consonant is ignored, and so a /k/ word may be used to spell an /ŋ/ word or vice versa.

[EXAMPLE]

The degree to which this is practiced depends on the point of articulation itself. While the distinction in manner is ignored in the examples above, with coronals, even though /t tʰ ts tsʰ s/ are at the same point of articulation, /t tʰ/ words are usually kept separate from /ts tsʰ s/ in their phonetic complements.

In this matching, the medial consonants /l j w/ after the initial consonant are also usually ignored.

[EXAMPLE]

Less commonly, phonetic matching may be built upon the sonorant rather than the initial obstruent.

[EXAMPLE]

One of the other curiosities of the system is that the phonetic complements of /h/ and the glides /j w/ are often mixed together, and /n l/ often form a class of their own together.

[EXAMPLE]

Even given this latitude in initials, good matches may be hard to come by, because not all the possible final rhymes are represented in the inventory of bases. In these cases, fudging of the vowel nucleus can occur. Usually the vowels that are collapsed together are different heights but have the same rounding and backness, such i/e, u/o, or û/o. Less commonly, the matching will cut across the columns of the vowel chart. Very rarely, the final consonant will be fudged.

[EXAMPLE]

kil kyel xyel

skin glass mare

[EXAMPLE]

ket Kôt

condition Kutsu nation

However, in the end, there is no real “Rule.” Even with all these explanations, there are idiosyncratic pairings, often caused by language changes that are now opaque, whose rationale cannot be given without reference to the idiosyncracies of those words’ etymology. For example, tô ‘and then’ and taq ‘fast’ may have originally been homophones, *ta. The particle though was weakened to tə, while ‘fast,’ being a content word, acquired a final stop to fill out the prescribed CVC template for content words.

[EXAMPLE]

Glyph Variants and Positioning

Variants of glyphs

Glyphs often have variant forms. Some variants are purely stylistic differences. Many of these existed in ancient times, but they have subsequently been winnowed down by standardization. Often though, glyphs have variant forms depending on whether they stand alone or make up part of a compound glyph. Many, if not most, glyphs, have several, and possibly many. These are slik wal i klût, or simply slik wal; I also call them alloglyphs (or allographs) in English, on the analogy of allophone. These may look different, but are considered to be the same glyph, just appearing in different situations. That overarching, meta-glyph of which they are members, I call a glypheme, on analogy with the phoneme in phonology.

Alloglyph Positioning

Each whole is conceived as comprising a block. A theoretical glyph “block”:

Some examples of variants of the glyph tey HAND:

Different positions in the block, and the variants corresponding to each, have different names. Although there are names for eight kinds of variants, no glyph occurs in all eight forms.

• Independent form (slik qat) - A “self” glyph is the form that a glyph takes when it stands by itself, and is not part of a more complex glyph. (However, some “self” glyphs typically exist as “double” glyphs - made up of two identical graphical elements.)
• right-side form (slik hyem) - found on the right side of a glyph block. These usually have a phonetic function.
• bottom-side form (slik wop) - found on the bottom of a glyph block. These usually have a phonetic function.
• enclosure form (klût hôl) - borders another glyph on at least three sides, and often four - thus completely surrounding the smaller glyph, which is inside the enclosure glyph. Sometimes hôl pan 'half-enclosure' is used for a form which only encompasses three sides.
  
• left-side form (slik lûq) - found on the left side of the block. These usually have a semantic function, although they may have a phonetic function, if the glyph is only found on the left side, such as sum spider.
• top-side form (slik tyaq or slik myat ‘hat form’) - found on the top of a glyph block. These usually have a semantic function.
• corner form (slik nok) - borders another glyph on two sides. Thus this variation has a characteristic “L” shape. Most commonly, they border the left and bottom, but sometimes the right side and bottom, or the top and either the right or left side; there may be several corner glyph variants. Usually semantic in function.
  
• enclosed form (slik nep) - usually the same as the independent glyph, only smaller. Almost always phonetic in function, unless it cannot take any of the other forms.
  

Oftentimes, the topside and underside variants are the same graphically. The same is sometimes true of right and left-side variants, but not always. When the right and left variants differ, most commonly the right-side variant will be a flipped version of the left-side variant. Corner variants can occur in any corner, in any side, of the composite glyph.

Indexing glyphs

Awareness of glyph positioning is not only important to writing glyphs correctly, but also to finding them in dictionaries, and decoding their meanings and pronunciations. When a composite glyph is a sound-meaning glyph, the sound and meaning parts tend to favor particular sides. Usually enclosure and corner variants represent semantic radicals and enclosed glyphs represent the phonetic component. When the components are vertically layered, the semantic part is usually on top. With left-right oriented radicals, the semantic element prefers the left side, but less consistently - to some extent, it depends on the bases used to make up the compound glyph. Often, particular bases will lack a particular form, or else consistently prefer one variant over others. For example, the leg glyph swot extends over left and top.

When indexing glyphs, they are sorted by bases. If the glyph is doubled, reversed, or modified by an operator, this is easy to sort. Compound glyphs, composed of multiple bases, are harder because one base has to be chosen as the radical for indexing. Like Chinese, Tepat usually goes by the semantic element in a semantic-phonetic compound.

If you don’t know the glyph, the following rules are usually applicable:

• Does it form the perimeter of the glyph on at least 3 sides? If so, it’s the radical.
• Does it extend around two sides, including a corner? If so, it’s the radical.
• Does it extend across the top of the glyph? If so, it’s the radical.
• Does it extend up and down the entire left side of the glyph? If so, it’s the radical.
• If there are no enclosure, corner, top, or left elements, then does one element extend across the right side or bottom? If so, it’s the radical.
• None of the above apply? I dunno, your guess is as good as mine. Try looking up any element you can identify in it.
  
  

Other Stuff

([UNDER CONSTRUCTION])

Punctuation

Six special glyphs are also used, which might be called punctuation marks. Three of them are broadly equivalent to English punctuation marks, while the other three have no exact equivalent in English.

1. Cow i Syut, the “Endspot”

The usual ending punctuation is a large open circle. This mark is found at the end of all kinds of sentences, and is allotted the same space as any other glyph. There were no dedicated question or exclamation marks. This may be due to the fact that all such languages had explicit interrogative and exclamatory particles, which made special punctuation marks for them redundant.

2. Clew i Xom, the “Continuation-Pause” or “Pause-Continue”

The Yuktepat comma resembles a flourish or slash diagonally from the upper left to the bottom right. The comma was originally a mark of a pause (as in a list) or an omission - an ‘empty space.’ Its major use is to separate items in a list. Unlike in English, the comma is not used to set off quotes, relative clauses, or main and subordinate clauses. In this, Yuktepat actually goes further than English, and it places a comma between two terms even if there are only two terms in the list. As a ‘pause,’ it is also used to mark the end of lines in poetry. The same sign is used as a rest mark in musical notation. Two commas are used similar to ellipses when citing an abbreviated quote. Sometimes the two commas are themselves truncated into a “double comma” of two commas stacked on top of each other.

3. Kûmay, the “Little Breath”

The quotation mark (kûmay or may-myôl “little breath”) resembles a smaller version of the glyph for “air” or “wind.” Both of these signs originated as a stylized version of a person’s breath. In early paintings, this curly-cue symbol is drawn in front of the open mouths of people who are speaking. It was commonly used to link these figures with their words, extending from the speaker’s mouth at one end, to the actual quote at the other.

In written text, the quotation mark is placed after a speech verb (such as xem), and directly in front of the quote. Usually, it is placed only at the beginning of a quote. This can result in ambiguity if it is not certain where the quotation ends and non-quoted text resumes. Later scribes remedied this by using a composite sign, made of a reversed breath-mark over a period, at the end of quotes. However, in some old texts, the placement of this sign differs, as the limits of quotes may have to be reconstructed or inferred by scholarly research.

The other main use of this breath-mark is to mark phonetic transcriptions, and thus it also often marks foreign words. An obscure word or glyph in a text whose pronunciation needs to be explained, will be followed by the breath-mark and then a series of phonetic characters.

In most cases, the kûmay is in line with other glyphs, and even though small, is allotted the same space as a regular glyph. In some scribal traditions, it is written in the space between lines, either on top of the first glyph in the quote (in horizontal texts), or to the right of the first glyph (in vertical texts).

4. Klût i Nitôw, the “Mark of Two Times”

Repetition mark – this mark is used to indicate the writing of a glyph twice, such as in reduplicated syllables. It can also be used in lists to indicate the repetition of a prior value in a list, comparable to English empty quotes “ ”, or in footnotes, to indicate the same source, much like ibid.

Alternatively: The first stroke of the glyph was drawn, with a horizontal line under it; the first stroke was later regularized to a slash / swash, and the slash + bar mark became the repeat mark.

5. Hôl Wem, the “Enclosure of Respect”

The cartouche, called hôl wem, is the oldest of the punctuation marks. It first appears in ancient stone inscriptions as an identifier of names, especially the names of kings. Later, the cartouche was often applied to the name Tepat as well. Since then, its use has increased and has grown into a general marker of proper names.

The cartouche is not necessarily obligatory. It is most often used when the proper name in question could also be phrase, composed of common words, and thus it is necessary to disambiguate it as merely a proper name. As a proper name marker, it is applied to names of both people and places, especially nation-states.

The cartouche is also used as mark of emphasis - for example, to identify foreign or dialect words, or to point out the topic of a discourse, as for example in a definition. Around foreign words, it indicates that the glyphs contained therein are used only for their phonetic value, and not their meaning. In these usages, it often corresponds to our own use of bold or italic typeface.

Cartouches are no longer necessarily complete enclosures, and their exact appearance differs in different graphic traditions. Some ways of writing remove the top, bottom, or sides of cartouches. Thus in some styles, the cartouche appears as parentheses or bracket-like shapes on either side of the name. In others, a long vertical line extends lengthwise along one or two sides of the proper name, like simultaneous underlining and overlining. In quick, handwritten documents, often only an overline is used, or else a line down the right side of the name.

6. Khûy, the “Little Of”

The subordinating mark is called khûy, from the bimorphemic kû-(h)i, or “little i.” I, of course, is the important particle, translatable as “of.” Khûy looks like a small horseshoe, open to the bottom, and so resembles the general shape of the glyph for i. It is written in the space between two glyphs. It is aligned to the top of the line, and may even be raised slightly above the line, like a superscript numeral.

Khûy is a kind of abbreviation, used to avoid writing (the very, very common) i in full each time it appears, and so is also pronounced i, with all of that particle’s variations. As such, it is the only “punctuation” mark in standard writing which represents a phonetic form.

The relativizer i was used differently in older forms of Yuktepat, but we are not sure in what way, because i was not always written. Old texts sometimes omitted i, but it is not known in which instances the i was meant to be read, and in which cases it never existed. The superscripted i-mark originated among scholars as a means of annotating texts by adding i in between letters in places where they reconstructed it. Over time it evolved into just another way of writing i, optional anywhere in order to save time and space from writing the full character. It can be compared to the Latin symbol &, which simply replaces the word “and.”

Numeral Notation

Aside from the glyphs for representing words, Yuktepat also has a system for writing numbers. It is base twelve of course, and incorporates the concept of zero. It uses a system of vertical and horizontal bars, similar in concept to tally marks for keeping track of things in English.

One is represented by a vertical bar. Two is two vertical bars, three is three vertical bars.

After three though, each group of three is turned into a horizontal stroke. Then additional ones are placed on top. Hence, four is represented by a vertical stroke on top of a horizontal stroke.

Five places two strokes on top of the horizontal bar. Six has three vertical strokes. Then at seven, six is converted to two horizontal strokes and another vertical stroke placed on top.

Three groups of three become three horizontal strokes. This continues until we get to twelve, which is written with one vertical stroke, and then a zero, because this is base twelve. The zero is a loop that looks like a little ribbon - the same as the negative operator stroke.

In non-mathematical contexts, the number 12 may also be spelled with its own glyph.

Additionally, a sideways ‘two,’ connected to the preceding character by the top, is also used as a repeat mark.

More commonly now, these numbers are written in a semicursive way, where vertical strokes are connected, and horizontal strokes are connected too. So ‘two’ takes on the form of a little ‘n,’ and ‘three’ takes on the form of a little ‘m.’ An even more cursive style is sometimes found, where both horizontal and vertical strokes are joined continuously. This is the typical form of numerals when they occur inside compound glyphs, such as as radicals denoting a phonetic value. Twelve may also be written with a ligature glyph.

List of Radicals and Categories

([UNDER CONSTRUCTION])

Within groups, the glyphs also come in a conventional order. The ordering is not completely straightforward. To some degree, simpler-looking glyphs are preferred to come in front of more complex-looking ones, even though there is no way to quantify ‘simplicity’ as with strokes. However some categories use other means. The human body and nature categories like a top-bottom approach: from the head to the foot, and then to internal organs. Nature glyphs are arranged by altitude, starting with the vault of heaven, then atmospheric phenomena, mountains, land, and water. Animal glyphs are ordered beginning with the most ‘advanced’ or ‘civilized (domestic)’ animals, and proceeding down to insensate worms, with destructive and morally reprehensible dragons and ogres at the end. Animal body parts are then ordered from the tip of the nose to the tail.

Within the series, reversals and doubling are not often considered separate glyphs, but are counted among the instances of the corresponding base glyph. Within that base glyph’s entry, they are however listed after the simple, unrotated glyph.

Similarly, modified glyphs are listed after the unmodified base forms, and are considered instances of them. (Operators themselves are usually not listed at all in dictionaries.)