Logogram Project

The Logogram Project is a collaborative conscripting project that aims to derive, naturalistically, a logographic writing system for English.

Table of Contents

• Logogram Project/Stage 1 (Japanese / Ancient Greek)
  • Logogram Project/Stage 1/Introduction to Ancient Greek
  • Logogram Project/Stage 1/Introduction to Japanese
• Logogram Project/Stage 2 (Ancient Greek / Latin)

Original Proposal on ZBB

Introduction

In a nutshell, the idea is this:

1. A group of Japanese from our timeline is transported back in time to the ancient Levant
2. The Greeks learn writing from the Japanese instead of the Semites
3. The Romans still learn writing from the Greeks
4. English still adopts the Roman writing system

The motivation for this is that, as Japanese has a two-layered logographic system that is the most complex system still in use in the world, it would be interesting to see how this system adapts itself if additional layers are tacked on to it. The English writing system, for example, would end up a mixture of Japanograms, Greekograms, Latinograms, Futharkograms, Normanograms, and syllabograms, all of which are subject to multiple readings originating in different languages, the sound changes of multiple languages, and the semantic drift of multiple languages, over two thousand years. How much complexity can we load into a writing system before it dies?

There is no conlanging or alternate history involved — everything stays the same, except for the nature of the scripts being passed around.

Process

The idea is to conduct the project as a relay: each stage of evolution is handled by two groups of people, each well-versed in one of the two involved languages. When each stage is reasonably complete, we move on to the next stage.

For example, the first stage is carried out by a group well-versed in Japanese, and another group well-versed in Ancient Greek. The Japanese people provide detailed information on the Japanese writing system while the Ancient Greek people are in charge of deciding how to adapt the system to Ancient Greek. This is then continued with Greek-Latin, etc. etc.

• Stage 1: Japanese to Ancient Greek
• Stage 2: Ancient Greek to Old Italic and/or Latin
• Stage 3a: Old Italic to Futhark and/or some sort of orthography for Old English
• Stage 3b: Latin to Old French and/or Norman French
• Stage 4: Old English and Norman French to Middle English
• Stage 5: Middle English to Modern English

Participants

People familiar with the following languages:

• Japanese (required)
• Ancient Greek (required)
• Latin (required)
• Vulgar Latin (preferred)
• Norman French or Old French (at least one is required, best if we have both)
• Old English (probably required)
• Proto-Western-Germanic or Old Norse (preferred)
• Middle English (required)

Future Expansion

There are many possibilities for future expansion. Modern Greek and all of the modern Romance languages can be derived relatively easily from stages 1 and 2 respectively. It is possible to branch off with some extra work to all of the other Western languages (Germanic, western Slavic, Celtic, Hungarian, Finnish, Basque) between stages 2 and 4. Finally, it is possible to branch off from Stages 1 and 2 to create Cyrillograms, Coptograms, Gothograms, and Armenograms.