Stormlight Archive Translation Guide

[Turos he/him]

I just read all of this in the last hour or so...

 

I think my mind is missing back on page 5ish. If you find it, please to be returning it to my inbox.

 

Don't worry about how smooth my grey matter appears. I actually know so much now about glyphs and phonemes that the wrinkles in my brain are compacted into one big wrinkle. This is the result of reading said pages. The result is the same as resetting my brain to default knowledgenesslessness.

 

Good days to you.

[Argent he/him]

Alright, as per Brandon's advice, I've sent Isaac an email, asking him to clear some things up for us. He'll probably need to talk it over with Brandon, so don't hold your breath, but maybe we'll learn some things

[Turos he/him]

Do you guys have any advice on alignment standards for Thaylen script? I want to make a font with them interconnecting, but it's difficult finding a trending standard of what fits which way with what else.

[Sarevok]

It's been a while since my introduction post because I got a new job. But I just finished WoR a few days ago and spent some time reading around here to catch up.

I've just spent 30 minutes figuring out which one I thought was Sebarial, only to notice you figured that out ages ago in your notes (though we disagree on which letter is the R and which the B ).

 

Just after giving up I had an idea and looked at the plain tekst on the warcamps map. It lists the high princes as "Roion, Sadea, Aladar, Dalinar (why not Kholin?), Vamah, Ruthar, Thanadal, Hatham, Bethab and Sebarial."

 

After comparing this to the list of glyphs, I noticed the first five of this list seem to be the five you'll find if you read up from the compass (presuming the top one is Vamah, which would mean the M isn't spelled out). This would suggest that the other five might have their glyphs listed down from the compass.

However, this would mean we're wrong about which one is Sebarial, though.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Sarevok

[Argent he/him]

Except we can't be wrong about Sebarial, because his glyph is drawn very clearly on the Narak map, and it's distinctive enough so that we can identify it with very high confidence on the warcamps map - it's the one just above the bottom one. I think I actually had 7 or 8 of them figured out, just don't have my notes with me at work.

[Harakeke]

Do you guys have any advice on alignment standards for Thaylen script? I want to make a font with them interconnecting, but it's difficult finding a trending standard of what fits which way with what else.

 

It seems like the vertical strokes are aligned along three "columns". The default width for each letter seems to be 2, although some letters (especially H and K) sometimes stretch out to 3 when necessary. A few letters seem to be slightly off-axis (possible indication of the existence of "screw you" in the shared Vorin proto-language, i.e. Dawnchant?) for aesthetic effect, but the font could gloss over that.

 

So for example, two ways to write T are:

 

123

L

 I

 

 L

  I

 

Coming up with automatic kerning for that strikes me as difficult, but you might be able to kluge something where the lowercase character is left aligned (12) and the uppercase character is right aligned (23), so that you can manually decide which version to use. (Or maybe this is something font-making programs can handle?  I dunno...)

 

If it would help, I can send you the .ai file I used to make the key.  (I'm out of town now, but I could send it when I get home.)

 

Also, the Alethi women's script font could use a revamp if you're good with that sort of thing -- the original version has a couple minor errors that I've fixed in my key. I have vectors for both Navani-style and non-slanted "proper" handwriting.

Edited March 28, 2014 by Harakeke

[ccstat he/him]

I think the "Thaylen" number labels may be off.

In the chapter where Shallan's father disinherits Helaran, he moves everyone up to Nan Balat, Tet Wikim, and Asha Jushu.

Previously it had been Nan Helaran, Tet Balat, Asha Wikim, and Van Jushu.

 

Currently the key has them arranged so that Nan in "Thaylen" matches Nan in Alethi as 2, followed by Asha as 3 and Tet as 4. It seems that the correct order should be Nan (1), Tet (2), Asha (3), Van (4). (Or if the two Nan numerals do correlate, then increase each by 1)

Also, I'm not sure where the label "Thaylen" came from. These are Veden titles that designate inheritance order. Did I miss somewhere else that these words are used?

[Eri she/her]

Wow, Harakeke, awesome lots of work!

 

I'm glad I don't have to use a script like that, because even with that key, I still can't see the letters in half of the glyphs and why do they read as they do. 

 

I wonder what is the text of surge symbols, but I cannot figure it out. Also:

Those are the colored symbols from rear WoK endplate, thanks to the vector version I was able to straighten them quite well.

 

I cannot translate them (I've tried), maybe someone else will be able to do it? I'm not sure if they even make sense, but maybe they are the Unmade names or something. I don't know.

 

They may have right/left halves wrong, since the originals are circular, I had to guess where they begin.

[Eri she/her]

I think the "Thaylen" number labels may be off.

In the chapter where Shallan's father disinherits Helaran, he moves everyone up to Nan Balat, Tet Wikim, and Asha Jushu.

Previously it had been Nan Helaran, Tet Balat, Asha Wikim, and Van Jushu.

 

Currently the key has them arranged so that Nan in "Thaylen" matches Nan in Alethi as 2, followed by Asha as 3 and Tet as 4. It seems that the correct order should be Nan (1), Tet (2), Asha (3), Van (4). (Or if the two Nan numerals do correlate, then increase each by 1)

Also, I'm not sure where the label "Thaylen" came from. These are Veden titles that designate inheritance order. Did I miss somewhere else that these words are used?

I think number 1 was the their father. Makes a lot of cultural sense to me.

Edit: No, after he's dead, Nan Blat is still Nan. So you're probably right.

Edited April 13, 2014 by Eri

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Just an FYI, in the livestream friday night Isaac said the glyphs for Bridge Four are "Vev Gesheh".

[Shaggai]

This is amazing. Why are you so brilliant?

[Argent he/him]

Just an FYI, in the livestream friday night Isaac said the glyphs for Bridge Four are "Vev Gesheh".

 

The one between freedom and Kholin? It has an annoying design

[WeiryWriter he/him]

The one between freedom and Kholin? It has an annoying design

 

There and on the patch.  The Vev part is easy, it is just the "X" at the top.

[Argent he/him]

Well, yea. But the circle in the middle of gesheh threw me off - though, admittedly, I haven't spent much time looking at it.

[Harakeke]

@ccstat - Oh, good catch. I'll revisit that when I get a chance. I did mean Veden there, not Thaylen -- and you make a good point about the ordering. I may be too hung up on the nan/nan correlation.

 

@Weiry - Pfft. I was *way* off with my guess of how to pronounce that glyph. =P  Good info though! It's tricky to parse the glyph, even with that transliteration. The (e)sh syllable seems fairly clear, and I suspect the circle is a "screw you". The top part really looks like an H syllable to me though -- that or my speculation on the G subglyph is way off. Maybe G can be realized as H? Do you know if it was a hard G (e.g. get, gone) or a soft g (e.g. gem)?

 

@Eri - Though, as far as most people know, isn't Brightlord Davar still alive? Renumbering his sons would sorta' ruin the whole secrecy deal...  

Edited April 14, 2014 by Harakeke

[WeiryWriter he/him]

@ccstat - Oh, good catch. I'll revisit that when I get a chance.

 

@Weiry - Pfft. I was *way* off with my guess of how to pronounce that glyph. =P  Good info though! It's tricky to parse the glyph, even with that transliteration. The (e)sh syllable seems fairly clear, and I suspect the circle is a "screw you". The top part really looks like an H syllable to me though -- that or my speculation on the G subglyph is way off. Maybe G can be realized as H? Do you know if it was a hard G (e.g. get, gone) or a soft g (e.g. gem)?

 

Like get or gone.  There was some other glyph related information, but I don't remember the specifics.  When the video gets posted I'll try to work on a transcription.

 

I wonder if the fact that "H" is a wildcard in the women's script have anything to do with this?

[Mailliw73 he/him]

Just an FYI, in the livestream friday night Isaac said the glyphs for Bridge Four are "Vev Gesheh".

So, its actually pronounced, Four Bridge. Interesting.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

So, its actually pronounced, Four Bridge. Interesting.

 

It does shed some light on Alethi grammar.  Like how in french most adjectives* follow the noun, as opposed to preceeding it like in english (i.e. "le livre vert" instead of "the green book")

 

*Of course excluding those adjectives pertaining to "beauty", "age", "goodness", and "size"

[Harakeke]

Like get or gone.  There was some other glyph related information, but I don't remember the specifics.  When the video gets posted I'll try to work on a transcription.

 

I wonder if the fact that "H" is a wildcard in the women's script have anything to do with this?

 

Ah. The G in the Thaylen key is a soft G derived from "DNGR" (Danger) -- so it really might be better to code it as J, now that I think about it.  In which case, we don't have a correlate for the (hard) G sub-glyph in Alethi.  Perhaps it looks sort of like the H, but with a straight dangly bit instead of a slanted one.  

i.e.  |_|‾

 

 

 

So, its actually pronounced, Four Bridge. Interesting.

 

 

Which also seems consistent with the way long numbers seem to be written with the smallest place values on top.

1173

 

3

70

100

1000

 

 

Edit: After staring at the Gesheh glyph for a bit, and assuming |_|‾ = G, I'm leaning toward a consonant-vowel syllable parsing, rather than the vowel-consonant I've been using.

 

Ge She (H)

 

  |_|‾   G_e

  \

|_     Sh_e

 

[Final H is not written, because screw you]

Edited April 14, 2014 by Harakeke

[Argent he/him]

Alethi Glyphs 101: Screw You

[Harakeke]

Made a few minor edits to the Thaylen Key to show that G is a soft G/J sound. I'm also pretty sure the second S is actually a Z. It only shows up at the end of the word "winds". All the other words like "rocks", "southern" etc. use the first S.

 

Fixed the Thaylen/Veden typo in the Numerals Key and added the alternate number name order. Though now that I think about it, I'm not sure if we've actually seen Veden numbers written down anywhere, so it's possible (though I think unlikely) that they're written entirely differently...

 

I made some substantial revisions to the glyph key after playing around with the Tattoo and Highprince glyphs some more.

 

I think dropping the the vowels entirely makes more sense than the consonant-rotation system I was playing with earlier (see Sas vs. Sadeas). Likewise, I think H is also dropped, except for when it's baked into digraphs like "sh".

 

"N"s are still somewhat problematic -- but it might be that they're just being truncated in the calligraphic forms (see dashed lines in Roion, Nahn, etc.). 

 

Edited April 18, 2014 by Harakeke

[WeiryWriter he/him]

OOh, charts!  The one complaint I have, which think I've mentioned before, is calling them Alethi glyphs.  That is not their name, if anything they should be called "Vorin" glyphs because they are not used exclusively by the Alethi but also by Vedens and Kharbranthians (and for all we know elsewhere on Roshar as well, Sigzil isn't Vorin and he uses glyphs).  Yes the Alethi use the glyphs but they are not "theirs".  In the same way we use the Latin script to write English but we don't call it the "English script".

 

/end rant

[PorridgeBrick he/him]

Nice work here. On the weirdness in the N's– could they have two N sounds, or maybe have different Ns for ones that end the syllable and those that begin them? In Japanese Hiragana (their phonetic script), for example, there is a specific character for an N that ends the syllable:

ん

That symbol has a slightly different sound from the other N– it's normally a bit like an Ng as in 'Sing', 'Tank', etc. They then have several characters for Ns that start a syllable:

な (na), に (ni), ぬ (nu), ね (ne), and の (no)

These are all an N sound much like our own, just with different vowels following each.

[Harakeke]

@Weiry : You're probably right, but for the moment the only good examples of writing that we have access to (with the exception of the Thaylen Frostlands map) were written by Alethi.  It's possible (and I'd say probable) that all the Vorin nations use the same graphemes -- or it could be something like English vs. Cyrrilic.  I'm a bit hesitant to use the label Vorin at this point (even for the numbers), since that term has such religious connotations -- it'd be like saying "Christian Script".  Kharbranth is such a melting pot that folks there could easily use Alethi alongside many other writing systems. Likewise, given Sigzil's unique education, I'd imagine he's at least passingly familiar with most of Roshar's languages.  

 

@Porridge: Perhaps -- although the sample size is really too small at this point to tell if there's a consistent method behind the variation. It would seem odd to have specific syllabic rules for just one letter though -- so I suspect the rule is "make the glyph look pretty" (aka "screw you"). For example, the letter G in Gesheh also gets truncated when you go from the stylized (patch) to super-stylized (tattoo) version. I could also just be wrong in what I'm parsing as N...

Edited April 18, 2014 by Harakeke

[Bloodfalcon he/him]

This is really interesting and all, but seeing as writing is feminine, I'm going to let you guys handle this one and I'll just sit the bench and watch.

Looks awesome though, really.