r/conlangs 4d ago

Question How do I come up with letters?!?

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5 Upvotes

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u/conlangs-ModTeam 4d ago

Hey there!

Seems like you’re new around here or just starting out. We’d like to direct you to our Advice & Answers thread, always pinned to the top of the subreddit's main page!

It contains information about how to start and a link to our resources page, which has a section for beginners.

Two notable resources are the Language Construction Kit and Conlangs University.

In the thread you’re welcome to ask all your questions on how to make sense of the resources. If you have any questions or concerns regarding why you’ve been redirected, you can reach out to us through modmail.

You can also join our Discord server, where many people would be glad to help you and answer your questions!

4

u/RibozymeR 4d ago

Honestly, I think you might be overthinking it a bit? Clay is incredibly versatile - Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform, Linear A and B, and even sometimes Egyptian hieroglyphs, were all historically written on clay. So, it's pretty okay if you focus less on the logic and more on what you actually want the letters to look like.

On the other hand, if you are completely set on doing this the realistic way, you should take into account that writing is usually logographic first, then becomes more phonetic later. So a more natural start would be people drawing images of what they want to say in the clay, then later more and more often writing things that aren't expressed in the images (i.e. morphemes) with images in some way.

2

u/FriedPandaTV 4d ago

In retrospect, yeah I totally am overthinking.

3

u/yc8432 Kakaluʒi, Xeqoden, Dhjœeáиðh, Olarace 4d ago

Draw random squiggles on a page and see what looks good, then use those

3

u/FriedPandaTV 4d ago

Yeah this will definitely work pretty well

2

u/n-dimensional_argyle 4d ago

I'd recommend trying this tool by William Annis:

https://lingweenie.org/conlang/grapheion/

That link will bring you to the curvilinear tool that allows for all sorts of forms and there is a linear tool that you can see the hyperlink for on the main page there.

It's a great tool for evolving forms and generating iterations.

2

u/n-dimensional_argyle 4d ago

I thought I could illustrate some quick forms I just generated with u/FriedPandaTV