Unless Tensei phonotactics are more limited than I’ve so far been given reason to think, if this is a true, regular, and complete syllabary I’d ballpark … conservatively, 3000-6000 letters?
I remember evidence of 6 vowel/diphthong sounds and 16 consonants off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more, but I’ll be generous. Between (consonant)+l (as in LPO Quar) , (consonant)+r (Kransa) and r+(consonant) (Tern) alone, we can probably safely double the consonant-containing portion of the theoretically possible syllables number of syllable set. Round down by a third for “improbable syllables” and keep the change, you get 4000 letters.
Sloppy back of the napkin math, to be sure.
But one thing’s for certain:
It’s gonna take you a while to learn to read, Sel.
Very few languages have a true, regular, and complete syllabary. Japanese has one of the simplest, most syllabary-friendly phonologies there is, and it still cheats by having a separate letter for the syllable-final nasal, using diacritics instead of separate symbols for voiced consonants, using multiple letters to indicate long vowels, etc.
You’re right that there’s likely to be some internal regularity in a symbol set of that size. And actually, for all we know so far, there’s a way to break “kran” down into components that Te Fahn isn’t leading with–maybe more like Bengali or Hangul than Japanese kana. Not what I’d immediately guess from the written Tensei samples we’ve seen so far but hey–i can’t tell the difference between ゅ and ゆ half the time, so who am I to assume I can pick up on the subtleties of written Tensei?
Not tryna pick on Dave here btw. I love fantasy languages regardless of whether they’re water tight conlangs.
I just have a brain that does math about things I love
Oh, oh!
We also don’t know that “an” isn’t considered a nasal vowel in Tensei. So we might not be in the right to assume terminating consonants count as part of the syllable character at all. That’d take us from 4000 to more like 500
(Sorry for nerding out all over your comment section Dave XD. Yes, as a matter of fact, I /have/ been thinking about Tensei all day.)
Eh. Either it’s one more type of consonant or it’s one more type of vowel. Either way, it’s a distinction that increases the number of possible syllables.
Of course, real-life writing systems sometimes just… fail to mark some pronounciation differences, with words that are pronounced differently being spelled the same. (And sometimes words that are pronounced the same are spelled differently, or they write down excessive detail that’s redundant.)
But Te Fahn’s correction strongly implies that “kra” and “kran” are both single symbols that are written differently, whether that means a completely different symbol or an extra diacritic.
The symbol being pointed at doesn’t look complicated enough to represent “kran” built up from components in hangul style. (I’ve learned to recognize the hints that distinguish hangul from hanza/kanji, even though I can’t actually read either and they were deliberately designed to look similar.)
I still say “er” is a vowel in and of itself, not a combo. If it were a combo, you wouldn’t be able to elongate it without changing its quality (“ar” is two sounds, so you can elongate aaaar or elongate arrrr but you can’t make a longer “ar” in and of itself). Of course, that’s just in my dialect (Pacific Northwest) and might not be the case in other dialects.
But I could readily see a syllabary with markings for liquid merges (L, R) and nasal finals (N, M) — e.g. a top dot changes PO to PLO and a bottom dot changes it to PRO, and a final furl adds an N like in what I recall of one of Tolkien’s writing systems. Having that sort of system would also curtail the number of possible syllabic structures since you couldn’t add just anything, you could only add liquids here and nasals there or whatever.
It’d take some careful thought but I could see a syllabary working for a language like this. Add in a voicing marker and you can halve a good chunk of the necessary symbols (like Japanese KA/GA being the same letter, and SA/ZA, TA/DA, and even HA/BA/PA).
…p.s. Dave, I can recommend looking at the Language Construction Kit just for starters. And if you’d like the assistance of a lifelong language-lover with a bunch of conlang details in her head, to try to make a more functional actual language or at least a good approximation of one, do get in touch!
I REALLY love Te Fahn. She is just lovely. She is silly, sarcastic, and also shy and serious and responsible. What a wonderful friend and mentor for Selkie.
On NCIS, one time, Tony annoyed Kate, and she says, “I sleep with a gun under my pillow”.
At least three times on Castle, Rick annoyed Beckett and she said, “you know I carry a gun, right?”
And here we have Te Fahn – “I can turn animals into meat”.
All three of these examples are, basically, death threats. I’m going to shoot you, I’m going to shoot you, I’m going to cut you into little bitty pieces.
I’ve never heard anyone actually say something like that. Just in fiction – movies, TV and now a comic strip.
Unless Tensei phonotactics are more limited than I’ve so far been given reason to think, if this is a true, regular, and complete syllabary I’d ballpark … conservatively, 3000-6000 letters?
I remember evidence of 6 vowel/diphthong sounds and 16 consonants off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more, but I’ll be generous. Between (consonant)+l (as in LPO Quar) , (consonant)+r (Kransa) and r+(consonant) (Tern) alone, we can probably safely double the consonant-containing portion of the theoretically possible syllables number of syllable set. Round down by a third for “improbable syllables” and keep the change, you get 4000 letters.
Sloppy back of the napkin math, to be sure.
But one thing’s for certain:
It’s gonna take you a while to learn to read, Sel.
*Plo Quar
**Cern
Very few languages have a true, regular, and complete syllabary. Japanese has one of the simplest, most syllabary-friendly phonologies there is, and it still cheats by having a separate letter for the syllable-final nasal, using diacritics instead of separate symbols for voiced consonants, using multiple letters to indicate long vowels, etc.
You’re right that there’s likely to be some internal regularity in a symbol set of that size. And actually, for all we know so far, there’s a way to break “kran” down into components that Te Fahn isn’t leading with–maybe more like Bengali or Hangul than Japanese kana. Not what I’d immediately guess from the written Tensei samples we’ve seen so far but hey–i can’t tell the difference between ゅ and ゆ half the time, so who am I to assume I can pick up on the subtleties of written Tensei?
Not tryna pick on Dave here btw. I love fantasy languages regardless of whether they’re water tight conlangs.
I just have a brain that does math about things I love
Oh, oh!
We also don’t know that “an” isn’t considered a nasal vowel in Tensei. So we might not be in the right to assume terminating consonants count as part of the syllable character at all. That’d take us from 4000 to more like 500
(Sorry for nerding out all over your comment section Dave XD. Yes, as a matter of fact, I /have/ been thinking about Tensei all day.)
Eh. Either it’s one more type of consonant or it’s one more type of vowel. Either way, it’s a distinction that increases the number of possible syllables.
Of course, real-life writing systems sometimes just… fail to mark some pronounciation differences, with words that are pronounced differently being spelled the same. (And sometimes words that are pronounced the same are spelled differently, or they write down excessive detail that’s redundant.)
But Te Fahn’s correction strongly implies that “kra” and “kran” are both single symbols that are written differently, whether that means a completely different symbol or an extra diacritic.
The symbol being pointed at doesn’t look complicated enough to represent “kran” built up from components in hangul style. (I’ve learned to recognize the hints that distinguish hangul from hanza/kanji, even though I can’t actually read either and they were deliberately designed to look similar.)
I mean technically the thing that indicates a long vowel is just a wierd diacritic it has no meaning of its own.
It’s only used in katagana and not hiragana, though? Or so my sources tell me.
Either way, diphthongs also need an extra letter, but I hate spelling that word.
I still say “er” is a vowel in and of itself, not a combo. If it were a combo, you wouldn’t be able to elongate it without changing its quality (“ar” is two sounds, so you can elongate aaaar or elongate arrrr but you can’t make a longer “ar” in and of itself). Of course, that’s just in my dialect (Pacific Northwest) and might not be the case in other dialects.
But I could readily see a syllabary with markings for liquid merges (L, R) and nasal finals (N, M) — e.g. a top dot changes PO to PLO and a bottom dot changes it to PRO, and a final furl adds an N like in what I recall of one of Tolkien’s writing systems. Having that sort of system would also curtail the number of possible syllabic structures since you couldn’t add just anything, you could only add liquids here and nasals there or whatever.
It’d take some careful thought but I could see a syllabary working for a language like this. Add in a voicing marker and you can halve a good chunk of the necessary symbols (like Japanese KA/GA being the same letter, and SA/ZA, TA/DA, and even HA/BA/PA).
…p.s. Dave, I can recommend looking at the Language Construction Kit just for starters. And if you’d like the assistance of a lifelong language-lover with a bunch of conlang details in her head, to try to make a more functional actual language or at least a good approximation of one, do get in touch!
I love when Te Fahn gets assertive.
Me, too. Selkie needs friends who won’t let themselves be walked over.
I REALLY love Te Fahn. She is just lovely. She is silly, sarcastic, and also shy and serious and responsible. What a wonderful friend and mentor for Selkie.
Aww, “responsible” doesn’t begin with an “s” 🙁
Sounds like Tensei uses the same vowel and word structure as Korean where every symbol has a distinct sound to pronounce it.
In the last panel, is that a bribe or a threat?
Yes
You suppose anyone really says this?
On NCIS, one time, Tony annoyed Kate, and she says, “I sleep with a gun under my pillow”.
At least three times on Castle, Rick annoyed Beckett and she said, “you know I carry a gun, right?”
And here we have Te Fahn – “I can turn animals into meat”.
All three of these examples are, basically, death threats. I’m going to shoot you, I’m going to shoot you, I’m going to cut you into little bitty pieces.
I’ve never heard anyone actually say something like that. Just in fiction – movies, TV and now a comic strip.
Pink Floyd’s “Careful With That Ax Eugene,” … one of these days I’m going to chop you into little pieces.
Few people in real life are badass enough to make convincing death threats.
Also, it’s kinda illegal.
Her threat could be seen either in a “I will end you” way, or “I will not feed you meats” kind of way.