Kardii Writing

• Kardii Writing
  • See also:
  • Alphabet
    • Imperial Alphabet (Tayrruad Daajnaa)
    • The Trade Style Alphabet (Tayrruad Saalan)
  • Punctuation
    • The Iilkana Word Delimiter
    • Ends of sentences
    • Apostrophe in Transliteration
  • Questions
  • Abbreviation Letters
  • Strikethrough

The Kardii alphabet bears a strong resemblance to Iilkana Writing, from which it is derived (before contact with the Iilkana, the Shela had no written form of their language). Kardii is written from right to left and does not put spaces between words.

	Mina i'iee rekypache dy natibi - Even dragonflies must rest their wings

See also:

Taytastu
Kardii Numbers

Alphabet

There are twenty nine letters in the Kardii alphabet. The most common order of the letters is based on Iilkana alphabetical order and is shown below. The letters have no actual names, and so are often described using words that begin with them, naan, uhlta, uwen, etc.There are two main lettering styles, the imperial style, used for official and religious records, and the trade style, used by the Shela Merchant Clans.

Imperial Alphabet (Tayrruad Daajnaa)

n uh u o a i

e t v s sh k

j f r p l w

d th rr m y ee

oa ay b h ch (apostrophe)

The Trade Style Alphabet (Tayrruad Saalan)

n uh u o a i

e t v s sh k

j f r p l w

d th rr m y ee

oa ay b h ch (apostrophe)

Punctuation

The Iilkana Word Delimiter

The Kardii 'hyphen' is used in Iilkana to seperate words. In Kardii, it's used as a written equivalent for any unnatural break in speech:

Ends of sentences

Kardii likes to start each sentence on a new line, where practical. When two sentences share the same line, they are seperated with this symbol: When a sentence is too long for a line, continuation is marked with the apostrophe symbol at the end of the line:

Apostrophe in Transliteration

The combinations t'h, eg. 'ayt'hali' (shoulder), and s'h, eg. 'tes'hijena' (annual flooding), are written with an apostrophe in latin transliteration only. This is to distinguish them from 'th' and 'sh'.

Questions

Closed (and sometimes open) questions are indicated by writing the word 'kay' at the beginning of the sentence. This word is not read aloud.

Abbreviation Letters

Most Kardii suffixes, and a couple of grammatical words, have single letter abbreviation forms. These are not used in formal documents. belongs in a similar context to "R U coming 2day?".

The abbreviation forms of 'kay' and 'ksate' are used only when indicating a question/request at the beginning of a sentence. Elsewhere these words are always spelled out in full.

-che -cha -chii -se -sa -sii

-ke -jje -kii -jjii -di

kay ksate ty tuii

Strikethrough

Strikethrough in Kardii is used for emphasis, much like the exclamation mark in English. Instead of the whole sentence, only the most important word(s) are struckthrough.

pilimake theriimi! etaka thekatchii! (Get out of the house! The roof's going to collapse!)