Phonetic Picture-Writing: a letter-picture-writing español deutsch

What is a Phonetic Picture-Writing ?

A phonetic picture-writing is a picture-writing, which also is a true phonetic writing.

For its ideograms (picture symbols) are composed of special letters. An example:









This ideogram means ' face' - and also it represents the pronunciation 'ela'

For it is composed of specially designed letters. If you read these letters from bottom to top, the phonetic result is 'ela' :







A simple Phonetic Picture-Writing

Here we show a simple, but quite efficient phonetic picture-writing. It has only these 12 letters (3 of them contained in the above ideogram for "face"):















(Red letters describe the pronunciation by international phonetic writing. h is a shortening for the sound "sh")



One can bring into one's mind this alphabet by 5 ways: Just learn it. Or learn the system of this mini-alphabet (see below). Or learn a few words (the ideogram and the pronunciation): If you, for example, know the 5 words for 'face', 'two', 'circle', 'square' and 'rhomb' shown below, you know the whole alphabet of this picture-writing. Or print the letters (including their phonetic transcription), cut them out and lay words with them. Or type in words on screen.







Examples of Words









The words above can be spoken easily. For all syllables only consist of consonant + vowel, e.g. 'me' or 'la'. (At the beginning of the words, also the syllables 'e', 'a', 'o' may occur.) But what can one do, if an ideogram is an unspeakable series of letters, e.g. 'fp' ?



To solve the problem consequently, and to yield a very clear and nice-sounding pronunciation, there is help: when speaking an ideogram, you insert as often the vowel 'i' and the consonant 'j' (spoken like the y in 'yes'), until the resulting word has only syllables consisting of consonant + vowel. (But the syllables 'e', 'a', 'o' at the beginning of a word are not changed - they can be pronounced easily). These i / j are not written, there are no letters for them. Thus, the ideogram 'fp' is spoken as 'fipi', the ideogram 'taa' as 'taja'. Examples:

















































More examples of words in the printable dictionary and in the interactive dictionary









Letter Size

For didactic reasons, we figured the phonetic picture-writing rather big. But its simply shaped letters may be reduced much in size, more than Latin letters. Then they appear more charming and not so bulky, also more realistic: one scarcely has the impression that details are missing. (Also gray instead of black colour lets ideograms look more impressionistic, also bigger distance between the letters.) Some smaller ideograms:















Printed by laser or by types, the ideograms are more clear than on a screen. (If using an inkjet printer, the lines become too broad and thus the distances between lines become too small - the letters become indistinct at this size.) Here some pictures of scenes, explained in the article about grammar:

















Purpose

The original purpose of a phonetic picture-writing is: it's an artificial language, by which one can express everything - optically and acoustically.







For ideograms can be combined into scenes, and these can be spoken as sentences: This example is pronounced ani amimipi ela and means "legs, (over it) cape, (over it) face": "There is a standing man, with cape, his face is visible."

Different Versions

The simple phonetic picture-writing presented above contains the 12 most useful signs, and the sounds are attached very systematically to the signs. It's already very efficient. But to yield a full speach, more signs are necessary: 25 letters seem to be the mininum, to be able to portray all kinds of things and ideas by good ideograms.



During the antiquity, different versions of phonetic picture-writing have been used. Often the difference was only an other attachment of sounds to the signs, e.g. to exchange the humming for the hissing consonants, and vice versa. By this way, mystical circles tried to delimit from other such circles, and the "upper class" in greater mystical circles tried to delimit from the "ordinary people".













The System of Letters









In the picture beside we arranged the 12 letters so, that you recognize at once: There are narrow, middle-broad and brod signs.







Below again the 12 letters, now arranged in a 4 * 3 matrix. You see: Similar sounds are represented by similar letters. Signs for vowels are flat, signs for consonants are high. For every (in writing direction) broadening sign there is a similar, narrowing sign. By turning down the one, you get the other one.









- All signs for vowels ( e a o ) are horizontal lines It works like a chord: the longer it is, the deeper the sound - All signs for humming consonants ( l n m ) are vertical lines What is a humming sound? If you touch your larynx, or put a small finger into an ear, and speak a humming sound, you feel vibrations. Vowels also hum. So it is generally true: Humming sounds are written by straight lines, parallel to a coordinate axis. Not humming sounds are written by other lines: - All signs for hissing sounds ( s h f ) broaden on top They symbolize emitting, broadening air - All signs for stopping sounds ( t k p ) narrow on top What is a stop (or plosive)? An interrupted sound: if you speak, for example, slowly the word "apa", somewhen during it there is silence. Then air is emitted explosively

Another memory-aid: If you remove the curves from the Latin lower case letters l,n,m (from m also remove the central vertical line), you receive the corresponding letters of the phonetic picture-writing presented in this article. You get the same result, if you remove all non-vertical lines from the Latin upper case letters L,N,M. Also Latin K and P resemble the corresponding letters of our picture-writing, if you now remove the vertical lines and turn the result by 90 degrees.











More Themes

Non-bold links indicate pages in German language. (I'm sorry I had no time to translate them.) Nevertheless, pictures on these sites often will give you a good idea of the content.