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 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.
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 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” 🙁