Ardahab Con-script

"In the times before, Ardarev was purely spoken by the wandering tribes of Mirau. Over time, these elves grew interested in surrounding cultures, and Ardarev quickly became a Lingua Franca of sorts, so the many kingdoms of the desert and surrounding lands could communicate freely. But, in a time of kingdoms, the written word is essential, and, though the script of the Traveler's Tongue worked fine, the elves desired a script of their own. One brave knight, a man named Sayir Sevlu Rahim Isa um Hazan, took up the task. Rahim of the Black Blade was famed for his sword, but he was just as adept with a quill. After touring the ice elven lands of his father's home to learn more of the Traveler's Tongue, he took up the quill and devised a script for his own native tongue; Ardarev, the Sun Language, would need an Ardahab, or talking ink."
Tariq looks up from his report, ink staining his fingers. He had known Rahim personally, and had studied under him to learn his figures and words. That man was his first introduction to the ways of the ice elves, and look at him now! Campaigning in the capital of their icy kingdom, for a seat in their government! Writing histories of his people to go in their grand library! With a smile, Tariq turned back to his work."Rahim's script was not evolved, as the Traveler's Tongue's was thought to be, but instead invented, and took great inspiration from the Traveler's Tongue. It reads left to right, in rows from top to bottom, though it contains no upper nor lower case, and less punctuation. Beside each letter is a name for it, starting with the sound the letter makes. For some letters, they represent two sounds, and so they have two names: for instance, "fo a vo" means "f or v". As papyrus was abundant in the elves' desert home, that was what Rahim wrote upon: a great sheet of paper containing 28 characters."The punctuation characters' names are not how they are pronounced: after all, how would one pronounce a lone question mark? Instead they are descriptions of their purpose. The last character in the vowel's column is called "you say with wind," as it represents aspiration. In my own family name, this character would go above the final D. The other punctuation are as such: "it stops itself" represents the full stop, "you question" represents the question mark, "with passion" for the exclamation, "you pause" for the humble comma, and finally "it connects itself" for the hyphen. In this I feel the need to include the "o'o," which merely represents the pause between consecutive vowels, usually represented as such in the script of the Traveler's Tongue. For instance, if one were to translate "it lives," one would write "am-abre'e," or the corresponding character from Ardahab betwixt the two Es."I also feel the need to mention how numbers are handled, both in Ardahab and Ardarev. Many languages on this continent count upon fingers or toes, and therefore use a system based upon the number ten. Us elves instead use the number six as our base, as we count a great many things in multiples of six or three or twelve. I have not included the mathematical characters in this overview, as I feel it would needlessly complicate this discussion."All that said: my regards to Rahim and the house of Isa, for this beautiful script, and I do hope the deserts treat you old snow-crows well. Signed, Arevila Tariq Aljaradh um Faris."
Category:Lore
Category:Languages
Category:Traveler's Era