Idiotish
The Idiotish writing system was created by Alex Book for his constructed language, Idiotish.
The name comes from the fact that the language is so easy compared to
other languages that anyone can learn it. There is no distinction between
"good" and "well", no irregular verbs, no gender for objects, no case
inflections, and only one way of saying "you". The vocabulary is taken
from various languages, plus onomatopoeia.
Notable features
- Type of writing system: Idiotish is the "duckbill platypus"
of the writing world. Technically speaking, it is a syllabary,
with each block representing a syllable. However, each syllable
block is actually a composite of an initial consonant (cluster),
vowel, and final letter, making it also an alphabet. A similar
system would be Korean.
- Idiotish is mainly written from left to right in horizontal
lines, and also in vertical columns running from left to right.
- The phonology is based on American English. The sounds "v",
"th", and "j" have been removed, and final clusters longer
than two sounds are allowed, because foreigners usually have
more difficulty making these consonant sounds in English (although
there are letters in the alphabet for making these sounds in proper
names). Alex added a new sound that is a drawn-out L, but it
is limited to just a few words. There are two easy clicks. The
first one is produced by placing the tongue on the "t" position
and then moving it back (a "cluck"). The second is the same as
the first, but with the lips rounded. The function is simple;
Click one means "the" and click two means "a(n)".
- The average length of an Idiotish word is two to four syllables.
Words are separated by spaces. The period and comma occur at mid-height ·,
as opposed to the bottom of the line.
- No words (not even proper nouns) are "capitalized". There are no capitals in Idiotish.
- There are three accent marks to determine the stress and tone of a syllable.
- There is currently no support for writing these characters
on the computer, but if the language ever gets popular, there might be.
Idiotish script
Sample text
Translation
The cheater never wins. The winner never cheats. Alex Book
Constructed scripts for: Ainu |
Arabic |
Chinese languages |
Dutch |
English |
Hawaiian |
Hungarian |
Japanese |
Korean |
Lingala |
Malay & Indonesian |
Persian |
Tagalog / Filipino |
Russian |
Sanskrit |
Spanish |
Taino |
Turkish |
Vietnamese |
Welsh |
Other natural languages |
Colour-based scripts |
Tactile scripts |
Phonetic/universal scripts |
Constructed scripts for constructed languages |
Adaptations of existing alphabets |
Fictional alphabets |
Magical alphabets |
A-Z index |
How to submit a constructed script
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