Kapunuan

Kapunuan was created by Joseph Barretto in 2006. He imagined a writing system inspired by trees and created by a people who revered them. The word kapunuan is Tagalog for a group of trees, but also means source or beginning.

Notable Features

Written in horizontal lines from left to right and top to bottom
Consonants are represented by letters. Vowels are represented by diacritics.
Each letter is composed of four parts: trunk, branch, fruit, and air.
- Trunks are grouped by order depending on the family of sounds.
- The branch is constant.
- Fruits distinguish the members of each trunk order.
- The air is a placeholder for the vowel (or vowels) that follows the consonant. Just as air gives life to trees, a vowel gives life to a consonant and gives it a sound.

Additional Notes

The vowel diacritics are written in the "air" placeholder of the consonant which precedes them. If vowels appear at the beginning of a word, the diacritics are written above the "trunk" of the consonant that follows them. A special vowel carrier (first order trunk, no fruit) is used for vowels that stand alone.
Vowels can be stacked vertically if one follows another. They are read from top to bottom.
There are three shorthanded endings: -s (or -es), -ing, and -ed. Two dots under a letter represent a double consonant.
There are two special abbreviations:

Consonants

The following chart represents the six trunk orders and the six types of fruits possible within each order.

Kapunuan consonants

Trunks and fruits combine to form the following letters:

Kapunuan combined trunks and fruit

Vowel Diacritics

Punctuation

Kapunuan punctuation

Numerals

Kapunuan numerals

Sample text in the Kapunuan

Sample text in the Kapunuan alphabet

Transliteration

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

If you have any questions about Kapunuan, you can contact Joseph Barretto at joopynyc[at]yahoo[dot]com

Other scripts invented by Joseph Barretto:

Bagoyin, Empisava, Kapunuan

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