Thread: What language/writing is this?

Many non-Han (not culturally Chinese) ethnic groups in southwest China employ writing systems that were Chinese-based or Chinese-influenced. Collectively they are called "Siniform" scripts because they resemble Chinese in shape.

One of these Siniform scripts is the Yi script, employed to write the Yi or Lolo language (which belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language family). The Yi script is also known as Cuan, or Wei. The earliest surviving record of Yi dates from about 500 years ago. However, unlike other Siniform scripts, the form of its signs show a more indigenous development. Probably the form of its characters were not taken from Chinese, but instead appeared via stimulus diffusion from Chinese.

There are roughly eight to ten thousand Yi signs. Because there is a modern Yi script introduced in 1970, the old Yi writing system is named "Classic Yi". Like Chinese, Classic Yi is a logographic writing system in which a sign stands for a whole morpheme. Many signs are "simple", meaning that they cannot be broken down or be derived from other signs. These include characters for 'sky', 'earth', 'snake', 'hand', etc.



Like archaic Chinese, homophonous (same-sounding) words in Yi can also be represented by the same sign. For example, in the picture below, the sign for 'snake' is also used to represent 'gold', 'yellow', and 'hereditary (son)'.

Also, it is possible to derive a new sign from an old one by adding strokes to it, such as adding a loop to the sign for 'water' to make the sign for '(noise of) flowing water'. Another way of sign-formation involves duplicating a sign, such as the character meaning 'to hold (with both hands)' from the sign for 'hand'. Finally, two different signs can come together to form a single sign, such as combining 'half' and 'earth' to make 'accompany'.



In 1975, the central government decreed the creation of a "simplified" Yi script. 819 characters were taken from the Classic script to create a syllabary called "Modern Yi". The Yi language is actually very apt for a syllabary as the typical syllabic structure is either a vowel or a consonant followed by a vowel. However, Yi has 43 different consonants, ten vowels, and four tones. While not every combination of consonant, vowel, and tone is possible, the syllabary still needs a large number of signs to fully represent all possible syllabic combinations.

The following is the full Yi syllabary.





Tone designation is represented by two-digit numbers following vowels. Imagine a pentatonic musical scale of five pitch levels written from one to five (five being the highest pitch). The tone starts with the pitch of the first digit and glides into the pitch of the second digit. Following this, the tone (55) is a high tone, (33) a mid-level tone, (34) a mid-rising tone, and (21) a low-falling tone. Note that The tone (34) is represented by the same sign for (33) plus an arch above it.

The following are some examples of Modern Yi script:



Links:

Yi TrueType font created by Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL)



Copyright © 1996-2007, Lawrence Lo. All Rights Reserved

Isis wanted this bit of writing in here.

thank you darknight for your help it was pissing me off cause i could not get it to work...

Originally Posted by Zarka Killerfog

Okay I have a good friend who had an odd experience. He's not into the occult or anything just a normal guy. One day he was in his room and went unconscious and when regained conciousness he found this odd paper in front of him. I'm only showing one screenshot, I want to know what language/writing is this?

My first impressions which are usually right, is it is Extra-Terrestial. A form of writing from space beings. The glyphs and the dots are characteristic of such texts that I have seen before. Many of these so called languages are useless to the reader and the channeller, as you get no other information about it form the source. As to what the specific text is I do not know, and even if I did, it is meaningless unless you know the full language ( even assuming it is a real language ) and can decipher it into our understanding. My mother use to do this stuff quite frequently and I have numerous small pages left in her deceased estate with similar squiggles and sigils which mean ???.

Situations like this are a bit like a Christian "talking in tongues" ( usually meaningless gibberish ) in Church, claiming its the Holy Spirit - it means nothing to the majority listening and serves only to swerve the individual into the power and control of the entity which worked through him/her, making them feel somewhat special and chosen for an undisclosed divine purpose.

Until your friend gets specific direction and information from the entity who contacted him, it appears to me to be a classic case of someone playing mind games and trying to goad your friend into an afilliation.

I say this because I have had first hand experience with others in times past, particuarly in the UFO circles and seen the "damaging effects" on others lives as a result.

That's my 2 cents worth - my apologies if it is not what you wanted to hear !