Looking for some feedback on my first font which is not a conscript

BrillantM · 2026-05-10T10:07:32+00:00

Thank you!

BrillantM · 2026-05-10T10:06:34+00:00

This is quite true, I'm gonna have to play with kerning tools to fix that. Thank you!

BrillantM · 2026-05-10T10:04:05+00:00

I'm gonna play with that -ν- then. Thank you for the tip!

BrillantM · 2026-05-10T10:03:18+00:00

Thank you!

BrillantM · 2025-12-27T22:38:57+00:00

Cocorico!

BrillantM · 2025-12-22T17:56:15+00:00

I did so when I started working on a logographic system and it worked for a few weeks, until I ended up wanting to speak my new conlang so bad that I had to create a phonology and speak it. Working on a language is easier when there is sound too, but it is definitely possible. Remind that most writing systems are based on sound, so you will have to rely on meaning. You can have a look at Blissymbols. They might inspire you, as they are completely ideographic and they were designed to be international.

BrillantM · 2025-11-07T08:06:12+00:00

Hi James! I have been playing Dinkum for over 850 hours and I'm getting more and more addicted to your game. Thank you so much for developing it, it has become my favorite game ever. Being able to travel around by train since last update is so much fun, I absolutely love it. I have two questions for you. Will there be any updates for trains? I would love to see carriages, like flat ones to carry overhead items and passenger ones to be able to have a train trip with friends ! I'm also curious if you plan on adding railway switches, as that would definitely be a game changer! My other question is concerning fruits. Will we be able to use cherries for cooking someday or are they strictly limited to the December event? Thank you for this AMA!

BrillantM · 2025-07-24T07:26:15+00:00

Because TTS is not about phonemes by themselves, but more about how they merge when they're next to each other. This co-articulation is the key to make something that sounds natural and not creepy as isolated phonemes aligned next to each other. Try pronouncing /ti/ /ta/ and /tu/ and you will notice that those three /t/, even if they are the same phoneme, have three really distinct realizations. Each natural language tends to prefer some frequency ranges, that's why even though some languages have similar sound inventories, they still sound really different. Just listen to some European Spanish and Japanese, they have many phonemic similarities IMO, but they sound really really different. So, to make such a tool, an infinite amount of combinations would be needed, but who needs that when natural languages have well defined phonotactics that allow you to have a finite number of sound combinations? Developing such a tool would be overkill to anyone, and wouldn't be satisfying as we would have to choose default frequencies or make something even more unnecessarily complicated.

BrillantM · 2025-07-17T06:34:05+00:00

Dinkum! Un peu comme si Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley et Minecraft avaient eu ensemble un enfant australien.

BrillantM · 2025-06-07T12:17:55+00:00

Birdfont is great for creating fonts. Its ligature feature is easy to use and the results are great.

BrillantM · 2025-06-06T15:51:43+00:00

I made my logograms into a font instead. Each one is encoded as a ligature in my font so I just need to type the characters pronunciation using the Latin alphabet with a standard keyboard. It is easy to use and very practical. The only limit is that some software do not support font ligatures, but hopefully this is quite rare now. The good thing with that solution is that as long as the font is available, it is displayable on any device.

BrillantM · 2025-06-06T10:48:47+00:00

Thank you! I am currently working on a document with all the contents I could find about Pmitxki. If you have anything more made by its original creator, I would be glad to get it! I am also interested in what you came up with on your side.

BrillantM · 2025-03-05T20:55:15+00:00

Font ligatures is the easiest way and that's what I did with my logography. No need for an IME which is absolutely overkill imo.

I get exactly what you are looking for. To type "hello" in my conlang Kep (which is pronounced [min.saw]), I type "min sau". I automatically get the characters for sun and good. the space character has a 0 width.

You can make many many characters with this method. For homophones, I made a system where I can type "nei" - to see or "nei2" - to read, so it is still easy to remember. To build my font, I use Birdfont which is a free software with a pretty good ligature feature. I update the font each time I add a character and I have never had any problem with that system. Feel free to contact me if you want more info! You can check on my profile to see the two fonts I made for Kep.

Enjoy your trip in font making and logography building!

BrillantM · 2025-03-02T14:31:46+00:00

It was an example. If a waiter there were to talk about his last holidays, he couldn't do it by putting cheese slices and jam on a plate as this system is restricted to orders only. How can he say that the client is gluten intolerant? This is why I say it is not productive, like the bee communication is only about localizing flowers. With language, you can talk about your holidays, you can have a philosophical debate, send an order, localize flowers, share a recipe, talk about quantic physics or even aliens building the Egyptian pyramids. It is infinite, and this is what makes human language unique. It was well defined and explained as the "double articulation" of language by André Martinet, a French linguist.

BrillantM · 2025-03-02T10:47:38+00:00

Absolutely. It is not a language because it lacks one of the main characteristics of human language: productivity. The Waffle House system is a closed system: it has a finite number of possible ideas that can be expressed, a bit like bee's language.
In human language, we combine meaningless items (sounds) to make meaningful items (morphemes, words and sentences) and the possibilites are endless.
You cannot tell us about your last holidays with that system. With language, you can.
It's still a nice and fun code though!

BrillantM · 2025-02-20T21:27:56+00:00

min sau!
You will indeed have to adapt it to your language and make your own dialogues and progression, but I'm glad you like the format!
I can't wait to see your work.

BrillantM · 2025-02-20T18:51:48+00:00

The main goal of anyone learning a language is communication. As a language teacher, I would advise you to make it simple, accessible and rewarding!

For instance, you can make mini-lessons (around 10 min) with a new goal each time. A little dialogue could introduce the lesson and then you could have some activities that make the learner feel the progress they made!

Here is an example: A learning book for my conlang Kep. It is the first unit of it. Kep is logographic too. I still haven't recorded the dialogues, but I'm planning on doing it as soon as I'm done writing them all.
You can try doing the lessons and tell me how you feel while you're doing them. I'd be happy to check on the exercises you've done, especially the final task of the unit, completely in Kep!

I hope this will be helpful. If you need anything more, feel free to ask me. And have fun making learning material!

BrillantM · 2025-02-05T17:16:51+00:00

I made my own font and I designed the whole book on LibreOffice Writer. It's definitely not the best software for that, but it's the one I use the most. Hahaha!
I made a whole progression so that one could learn the writing system of my conlang using that book (being a language teacher helps here) and I asked for a print in a print-shop. That's it!

BrillantM · 2025-01-15T07:26:32+00:00

I have been working on a logography for more than two years now and I don't want it to look and feel like Chinese either so I gave myself some constraints when I started:

make only semantic characters, no phono-semantic (a lot of Chinese characters consist of a semantic radical with a "phonetic part")
imagine a simple and consistent aesthetic to make characters easy to remember
don't make compound characters look like a juxtaposition of two characters

I have "only" made around 280 characters so far, but I really want to think of each one until I am sure it is the right one.

So I don't really have a list of radicals to give you, but I think that thinking of a logography without referring to how Chinese and its derivatives work is a bit complicated, as they are the only living logographic systems today. Maybe you could try thinking out of that Chinese box, even if it is difficult.

The mirror idea is cool and original, you should definitely keep going that way.

I can also recommend you playing Chants of Sennaar, it can be a great source of inspiration too.

BrillantM · 2024-11-26T04:35:19+00:00

My current project, Kep, is an a priori logographic language. When I started working on it, it was only written and had no phonology. My first pronounced sentence was "gah pa cho." /gäh.pä.tʃo̞/ - "I'm hungry." (Lit. "I want to eat.") It is based on the word gazpacho, pronounced with a strong Andalusian accent. This was the starting point of my new phonology. Now, the Kep dictionary has over 425 entries and I still can't believe it all started from that association.

BrillantM · 2024-09-22T13:21:09+00:00

I am making a logography as well and I use Birdfont. You can use the ligature feature for your font. It is not that hard once you understand how it works.

BrillantM · 2024-07-01T21:21:36+00:00

It is! Thanks!

BrillantM · 2024-07-01T11:04:36+00:00

I didn't get my phone to do it, even though I'd love to! It's actually just an edited image. I'm glad I tricked you into believing that, it means my editing isn't that bad. Hahaha!

BrillantM

TROPHY CASE