Eshtine

the Krohnian alphabet: the letters "ah" and "ay"

This is the letter "ah."





This is the letter "ay."


Iíve never tried to teach a new language before, so bear with me if all of this is convoluted, too vague, or too simplistic. Also try, through whatever I say, to remember that Iím approaching the subject as if this is a language spoken and written by a foreign cultureóbut that it isnít really; itís just some stuff I made up. So most of the time Iíll be talking about things as though theyíve had a long evolution of thought which we can now attempt to reconstruct, but sometimes Iíll just say, ìI designed this letter in honor of Becca.î
See the "More..." at the bottom of this entry? Click on it.

There are twenty characters in the Krohnian alphabet. In English, a single letter can have several different soundsófor instance, the letter ìaî in ìcatî or ìcake,î the letter ìcî in ìcatî or ìceiling.î But in Krohnian, each character (with one exception) represents a single sound. (Weíll get to the exception later.) In addition, there arenít any times in which two letters put together represent a sound distinct from eitheróthe way we put together ìtî and ìhî in ìtheî or ìcî and ìhî in ìch.î The sound of each letter is always consistent, so once you learn the characters, itís a simple language to read.
The range of sounds, then, is quite limited. It is much more like Hawaiian than English in that respect. For instance, there is no short ìaî sound in Krohnian. There is a sound ìahî (a bit like the ìoî in the word ìnotî) and ìayî (like the ìaî in ìcakeî). The characters for these two sounds are very similaróthe ìayî has an extra vertical line added to it, and that is the only difference. The line is the ìhornî from the character for the ìeeî sound, as though originally to write the sound ìayî one would have put the ìahî and ìeeî characters next to each other. Originally, then, ìayî might have been pronounced like the ìaiî in ìbonsai.î
The shape of the letter ìahî is something like a plus sign wedded to an ampersand. I no longer remember if I had a particular idea in mind when I designed it, but because one of the meanings of the word ìahî is ìand,î the shape is appropriate. I donít think I knew about the Dead Kennedys logo when I designed it, either.
The curving tail on the end of one of the crossbeams is a recurring motif in Krohnian letters. It gives a clue as to how the character is drawn. First the center vertical line is drawn, top to bottom, then the diagonal from the top right to the bottom left, then the pen stays on the paper to go up to the top left, then the diagonal to the bottom right, then the curved tail. The ìhornî is added last if the character is changed from ìahî to ìay.î
The character for ìahî can be a word on its own. It has many distinct meaningsóit is the conjunction ìand,î the verb ìto loveî in all its forms (ìI love,î ìyou love,î ìhe loves,î ìloved,î ìwill love,î etc.), the noun ìlove,î and can also refer to the color ìred.î The meaning must be deduced from context. (Have I mentioned that though Krohnian is an easy language to read, it is incredibly difficult to comprehend? It presupposes a high level of mutual understanding, if not telepathy, exists between two speakers. In written form it is valuable for transmitting poetry or other works in which ambiguity is accepted-nay-encouraged, but Iím not sure it could be used for anything more straightforward.)
Sometimes ìahî is used as an ending for a name to make it feminine. Example: ìsahnî means ìlion,î ìsahn-ahî means ìlioness.î
ìAyî similarly has several meanings. It can mean ìgirl,î the color ìyellow,î or the verb ìto giveî in all its forms.