ukarpanghooth.html (view raw)
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16<h1>ukarpanghooth</h1>
17<h2>overview</h2>
18<div class="win">
19<p>the first writing system i'm going to talk about is ukarpanghooth
20(meaning 'angular cut', <span class="nobreak">IPA: /ɤ.kaɾ.pan.ɡʱə.uːtʰ/</span>). it was actually
21my first attempt to create a writing system. it's main purpose was just
22to be unreadable by others (steganography? security by obscurity?).</p>
23</div>
24<h2>description</h2>
25<div class="win">
26<p>this is a simple alphabetic script based on latin alphabet. some
27letter shapes are also influenced by runic scripts. the first version
28(proto-ukarpangooth) was actually very similar to the latin alphabet,
29so later it was modified, as an attempt to make it more unique and more
30obscure. words are separated by a special symbol, so that sentences are
31written together as one piece.</p>
32
33<figure>
34<img src="ukarpanghooth-1.svg" alt="chart with three columns"/>
35<figcaption>
36correspondence between latin, proto-ukarpanghooth (abbreviated on the picture)
37and ukarpanghooth. some intermediate letter forms are also shown.
38numeral for digit zero is shown with an asterisk because it is not known
39if the corresponding glyph was used as a zero in numbers.
40</figcaption>
41</figure>
42
43<p>there is one interesting aspect about it is the order and direction in
44which it is written. initially it was done the usual way (well... for
45some), right-to-left, top-to-bottom. then i came up with something
46creative, writing it in groups of four letters in a square (top-right,
47bottom-right, bottom-left, top-left). if the number of letters in a
48sentence isn't divisible by four, letters are stretched to fit into
49square shape. there also instances of it written snake-shaped, turning
50by 90 degrees after each word.</p>
51
52<figure>
53<img src="ukarpanghooth-2.svg" alt="two pieces of example text written differently"/>
54<figcaption>
55"example text in ukarpanghooth" written conventional way (on the left),
56and maze-shaped (on the right). the latter writing direction was historically the first.
57</figcaption>
58</figure>
59
60<p>the name of the script suggests that one can cut it on something
61(wood, stone, etc.), as only straight line segments are used.</p>
62</div>
63<h2>usage</h2>
64<div class="win">
65<p>as mentioned before, script's main purpose was to hide some information
66(i once used it to cheat on a test in a physics class :D). mainly i
67wrote english text. some time later i used it to write my unfinished
68conlang named aihnth (<span class="nobreak">IPA: /a.ji.ən.tʰə/</span>).</p>
69
70<p>the script has some ornamental potential, as its glyphs are pretty
71simple and use only straight lines.</p>
72
73<figure>
74<img src="ukarpanghooth-cross.jpg"
75alt="a photo of st peter's cross cut out from plastic
76with some inscriptions on it, on the right side of the picture there is drawing which shows only inscriptions"/>
77<figcaption>
78st peter's cross with "hd un'nuhrthh fah'deelhrhu khotghu koth'h" written on it.
79</figcaption>
80</figure>
81
82</div>
83<h2>font</h2>
84<div class="win">
85<p>actually, at first, i didn't think that it would be possible
86to replicate this script's peculiar writing order in a computer
87font. however, after reading some specs, decompiling some fonts and
88experiments i've found a way to do it.</p>
89
90<p>open-type features allow two things: substitution (GSUB) and position
91(GSUB) of glyphs. basically, we need to have three versions of each
92letter: full size, half size and quarter size. then we substitute runs
93of four letters with four quarter sized ones, three letters with two
94quarters and one half, and, finally, two letters with two halves. the
95only thing left is to use contextual postitioning to move each component
96where it needs to be.</p>
97
98<pre>
99<code>
100@full = [a b c]; # full-size letters
101@half = [a.half b.half c.half]; # half-size letters
102@qrtr = [a.qrtr b.qrtr c.qrtr]; # quarter-size letters
103
104# helper lookups
105lookup full2qrtr {
106 sub @full by @qrtr;
107} full2qrtr;
108lookup full2half {
109 sub @full by @half;
110};
111
112# main substitution lookup
113lookup charBlock {
114 sub @full' lookup full2qrtr @full' lookup full2qrtr @full' lookup full2qrtr @full' lookup full2qrtr;
115 sub @full' lookup full2qrtr @full' lookup full2qrtr @full lookup full2half;
116 sub @full' lookup full2half @full' lookup full2half;
117} charBlock;
118</code>
119</pre>
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