Magic, Language
Pursuant to Keet's unicode symbol of the day, one thing I keep thinking Sofi needs is the incorporation of glyphs/ideograms for common ideas. Not just alchemical symbols but things like these:
& (et, and)
ā (ante, before)
c̄ (cum, with)
p̄ (post, after)
q̄ (quisque, every)
s̄ (sine, without)
@ (<unk.>, at)
Not every preposition, necessarily, but many common words would end up with formal inclusion in the language as documented shorthand.
Magic, Language
A large triangular yellow sign looms: "Warning: now entering an ontology zone" ;)
Magic, Language
@literorrery Prepositions are a weird scary beast, especially when you realize that not all languages have the same ones. It's ALMOST a closed set, but... not.
They're like colors, only... not.
Magic, Language
@literorrery I have a semi-related problem that I've been poking at for a while, which is how I'd like to use my writing system for incantation work by assigning archetypal meanings to the glyphs. But then there's this scary question of 'how do I get good coverage?'
Magic, Language
@literorrery Even worse, I want the vowels to work as verbs. Since syllables are always (optional consonant)-(verb)-(optional consonant), that maps to SVO sentence construction pretty well.
But that means I have to choose a closed set of verbs. And I only get 10. o.o
Magic, Language
@indi You could make the vowels verb tenses. Or use dipthongs to broaden your space. That's a tricky one, though.
Magic, Language
@indi Definitely that narrows the focus, but it's still tricky. I appreciate the problem.
I actually went through a similar mapping exercise of metals to vowels and processes to consonants in a very early draft of Sofi. I ended up abandoning the idea, but I do have a "cycle of sounds" of sorts as a result. Interesting work but it didn't lead me where I wanted to go. I appreciate the effort you're putting into this!
Magic, Language
@literorrery Well, it helps in that the glyph-as-word use is explicitly for incantations, meaning I can get away with them all being, for instance, present-tense-imperative. And also suggests a smaller set that is important for 'spellwork'.
It's still a tricky question though.