Women's script

Women's script
by Isaac Stewart
Related to	Vorinism
World of Origin	Roshar
Universe	Cosmere

The women's script is an alphabetic writing system used in Vorin nations, such as Alethkar, Jah Keved, and Kharbranth, on Roshar. The script is a phonetic alphabet, meaning each symbol, or "grapheme", denotes a particular sound, or "phoneme", and is written left to right starting in the top left hand corner of a page. Each letter is determined by shape and size, and can be modified by the presence of one or two small lines after it. As is indicated by the name, it is almost exclusively used by women, as writing is considered a feminine pursuit. The women's script is distinctly different from glyphs, which are a more logographic writing system (albeit with a phonetic component), which men are also allowed to learn.

History

Women's script is known to date back to at least 1800 years before the True Desolation, as the protoscript. The protoscript was an old form of Women's script which eventually took on the modern form. This script took shape before various sound changes, and thus preserved historical place of articulation.

Structure

Characters

The twenty-five known letters in the women's script can be arranged into five sets of five letters each. Each set is defined by the basic shape of the characters within it: the "vowel set" is a vertical line, the "T set" is a curved triangle pointing to the left, the "S set" is a curved triangle pointing to the right, the "P set" is a curved diamond, and the "K set" is a jagged triangle pointing to the left.

Within each set the characters are defined by height and the addition of shorter lines. The first character is the maximum height, the second is two-thirds the height of the first, and the third is one-third the height of the first. The fourth is the same height as the second with the addition of two short lines to the right, and the fifth is the same height as the third with the addition of one short line to the right.

Punctuation

Women's script has only one known character for punctuation. It is a single vertical line with two small, horizontal lines at the top and bottom. It is written at the beginning of a sentence and it defines the maximum character height. Questions are marked by adding “ha” at the end of the last word in the sentence. There is also a question mark present in Navani's sketch in Oathbringer on page 447, but judging by the handwriting this was added later by Nazh and is not part of the women's script. There is also a diacritic mark denoting if a letter in an otherwise symmetrical word is pronounced “h,” but it is currently unknown what this looks like, only that it is present both above and below the letter. It is unknown what other punctuation exists, if any, as no other examples have been observed.

Women's Script Characters

Set	Starting Punctuation	First	Second	Third	Fourth	Fifth
Vowel set
	Height Marker	E	A	O	U or W	I
T set
	Height Marker	T	D	R	Th	L
S set
	Height Marker	S	Z	N	Sh	H
P set
	Height Marker	P	B	M	Ph	V
K set
	Height Marker	K	G	Y	Ch	J

Examples of women's script

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  Navani's notebook - pain knife

• 

  Navani's notebook - mood bracelet

• 

  Navani's notebook - elevator

• 

  Navani's notebook - airship designs

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  Navani's notebook - Stormclock and fabrial watch vambrace

• 

  Navani's notebook - The Fourth Bridge

• 

  Navani's notebook - The Arnist Method for capturing spren

• 

  Navani's notebook - The Sibling's heart

• 

  Rhythm of War - Experiments on Lights

• 

  Rhythm of War - The Herald-killing dagger

• 

  Shallan's sketchbook - lait

• 

  Jasnah's ketek, written for Shallan's wedding

Trivia

• The only samples of the women's script currently available are eight excerpts from Navani's notebook, two excerpts from Rhythm of War, some faded text on a sketch depicting a lait in Shallan's sketchbook, and a ketek by Jasnah.
• It was designed by Isaac Stewart, to look like waveforms.
• Neither Brandon nor Isaac can read the women's script without reference.
• The mapping between the women's script and the Latin script was first discovered by Harakeke on the Timewasters Guide forum.

Notes

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