Scripts, pronunciation and units

General
1

Hello,
so, I’ve already asked these questions on patreon, but it turns out there’s this new Discourse thing, so I’m going to ask them publicly here. Let me know if I should split this into several threads for each question or if there’s anything else.

First, we know that eldrae use several kinds of writing systems. One of them is the hexrunic, which we’ve seen on the Darkest Night card and it is possible to decode most of it from there (although I’m a bit confused by the two different characters for ‘i’ and their use). But what about the rest? Could we get a table of those different scripts?

The second question is related to the first, as it concerns pronunciation of eldraeic. Most of it seems pretty straightforward (especially for me, being Czech, the acutes for long wovels are pretty natural, while the diaeresis (is that what it’s called?) feels redundant, though pretty), but there are some letters which I have no idea whether I’m pronouncing right. Some comprehensive table / guide would be nice, though I’d be especially interested in letters (or letter combinations) ‘c’, ‘j’, ‘ch’ or ‘x’, as those often have very language-specific reading.

The last question (for now) is about units. Again, we know about the basic units of time (pulses, cycles etc.), but what about other types of units? I’d be especially interested in measuring distance, both on human and astronomical scales, but if there are any other units you’d like to share, it would be appreciated.

Just for context: I’m bulding my own (hard, far-future) sci-fi setting (mostly for role-playing with friends) where one of the polities, the Star Empire is directly inspired by the Empire of the Star. Not only out- but also in-universe - basically, some internet archeologists at the end of the 21st century found the Eldraeverse website and liked those ideas so much that they decided to make it a reality. 8000 years later, the Star Empire is a significant (although far from being the biggest) power in the Solar system. So far there isn’t much that I could show but hopefully I’ll eventually put a link to a World Anvil site here.

Thanks for any answers and related information.

2

Ordinarily, I’d recommend one per thread, but, hey, you did me the favor of moving this over here, so I won’t insist this time. :sunglasses:

I’ll just do this first question right now, since I’m going to have to dig up my phonology notes, etc., to do the others and I’m not in my office right now.

Script-wise - the trouble is that I don’t actually have character tables for the three major scripts.

(Those being hexrunic, intended to be carved on stone, and thus all line and angle on a basic hexagonal character framework; continuous alphabetic, a series of flame-like curvy characters written in a continuous cursive script, written with pens in rows from left to right; and discrete alphabetic, written with brushes in columns from top to bottom, curvy but not continuous.)

After constructing those characters for the card - which aren’t, I declare, canonical, because they’re a poor and derivative stab at what I think hexrunic should look like - I drew some conclusions and have been trying to get hold of someone with some talents in calligraphy to do some alphabet design for me, but no luck yet.

Sorry ‘bout that.

(By the way, the two ‘i’s are because the Eldraeic alphabet is a 36-letter alphabet. The short and long vowels, marked by the acute in Roman transliteration, are separate letters in the original.)

3

Thanks, the script on the card not being canonical probably explains a lot. Actually, concerning the two 'i’s, this was what I thought initially, but then there were other instances where it didn’t fit. Maybe you just made a mistake? :wink:
About constructing the real alphabet - well, that’s in part why (at least the out of universe reason; the in-universe being legibility) the characters for the script for my conlang (not very well developed, as the rest of the setting) map perfectly on a 7x7 pixel grid. Sure, I can make up more complex letters in my head, but I have no experience in calligraphy, so that probably wouldn’t go well.
And don’t feel forced to answer all the questions ASAP. I understand that 3 questions at once may be a little out of ordinary, so take your time if you want. I’m certainly not in a hurry. :slightly_smiling_face:

4

It looks like ‘i’ and ‘í’ are written with different glyphs, while the ´-accented versions of the other vowels are indicated by macrons above the respective glyphs. (I also note that the vowels are all subsets of the same nine-line (or ten-line, if you regard the vertical line as two lines) arrangement (the union of the ‘o’ and ‘u’ glyphs). Nicely systematic!)

I see “th” gets its own glyph, as does the hyphen used in the transcriptions.

I also note that your sample text contains no ‘b’, ‘f’, ‘g’, ‘m’, ‘w’, ‘y’, or ‘z’, at least some of which I’ve seen in vocabulary posts.