igor

19yo. slavic. sometimes i do some worldbuilding and conlanging.

[igoryelin]

A sample of what the Asamic script used for my conlang (Asamvuk) looks like now.

I post it mostly for the aesthetics, BUT:

as you can see, some characters are more complex than others. for example the 2nd one is a single syllable ("ḋa" /d͡ʐa/ – animal)

then there are the complex characters, made up of two to four base (simple, single syllable) characters. characters 4-6 are made up of two base characters (the 6th is "ma" (about) + "sọŀ" (meeting) = "masọŀ" /masʲɔw/ – conference)

characters 1 and 3 are made up of three base characters.

the 3rd one means "wild animal" (one that specifically lives in a forest). the first two characters are both "sạ" /sʲa/ – plant. together they mean "forest". BUT the third one is "ḋa" /d͡ʐa/ – animal. together they give us "sạsạḋa" /sʲa.sʲa.d͡ʐa/ – wild animal.

simple. the Asamic script might have many many thousands of characters in total, but you can read most of them knowing only.....a couple thousand!

one word = one character

90% of the time you stack the characters from top to bottom, left to right. but there are exceptions, where the characters have a more original structure, like:

• a 2:1 size ratio (characters size) instead of the standard 1:1. 2:1 is used for example for making adverbs: the character turning the adjective into an adverb has no reason to be as big as the adjective itself!

• in characters made up of 3 base characters, one (usually the first one) might be half the size of the entire character instead of 1/3. also to show its the most important part of it.

• characters made up of 4 base characters are practically always standard in structure.

[igoryelin]

Finally some proper Asamic outfit

[igoryelin]

Redrew this again after 4 months (actually started 2 months ago and just finished today).

A bit experimental but could be worse... there are some things I'd change but after spending 2 months on this and changing a billion details already I will just accept that it is what it is and the next one will be better (or not).

[igoryelin]

is the banner in your profile a flag or just colors? if it's a flag, what does it mean? :o

I didn't think anyone would notice it, but yes, it is a flag! It's the flag of Asam, a country from my worldbuilding project, located entirely in the arctic circle :)

I first chose these colours because I wanted to make a flag for the country when I was bored back in high school but the only markers i had were red (vermilion?), blue (dark teal??), black and gold. so..... that's why I chose them.

That's the original photo on which I based the flag's colours:

(i have no idea what the drawing was. it's just the first photo of these colours i found on my phone)

So the flag ended up looking like this:

(the ratio is 1:2)

Yeah I know, not the most original but I like it. I had to decide in what order the colours should be but this one looked the best to me and 2 other people whom I asked about their opinion.

Then I had to come up with the meaning which..... isn't the most unique or thought-out, but good enough for now.

The colours' meaning:

red – Colour associated with:

1. Fire and warmth, which are necessary to survive in the arctic. Fire is extremely important and considered sacred, a gift from God that keeps people alive in such a harsh environment. So the colour is associated with survival and safety.

2. Blood and flesh, so the animals and food – very important and necessary to survive so far North where vegetation is scarce.

3. Independence. After over a hundred years of occupation and the war that ended with Asam gaining their independence back, it's commonly associated with the blood spilled by millions of people who lost their lives fighting for freedom.

blue – The arctic environment, the snow, the ice, the ocean, the sky. So the things that are not alive themselves, but still affect people's lives greatly.

black – The darkness of the polar night, which almost all of Asam experiences to some extent, since the entire country is located in the Arctic Circle (67°N-85°N). Spending up to months without significant daylight is a very significant aspect of the Asamic people's lives.

gold – The polar day/midnight sun. Also experienced pretty much in every part of Asam, but to a very varying degree.

The colours are Asam's national colours as well.

[igoryelin]

do you have a post summarizing your world? :0 im very curious to read, just got to your blog via my worldbuilding one

thanks for asking!! I haven't actually written much about my world here yet mainy for two reasons:

– i've been too stressed out to even think about it recently or make/write anything related to it worthy posting because im moving alone to a big city (tomorrow!) and then starting uni the day after

– the real reason which is me being used to people i know finding worldbuilding weird which makes it difficult to open up about it online

so yeah i'm just a worrier and also new to tumblr, but i have things i'd like to share and i really really hope i will finally get to do that soon.

[igoryelin]

My 6 years old screenless drawing tablet is close to dying and barely let me finish this. I might have to let it die and upgrade finally...

[igoryelin]

Asamvuk phonology and orthography

consonants:

b – /b/

c – /t͡s/

ć – /t͡ɕ/

ċ – /t͡ʂ/

d – /d/

ď – /d͡ʑ/

ḋ – /d͡ʐ/

ḍ – /d͡z/

f – /f/

g – /ɡ/

h – /h/

ḣ – /x/

k – /k/

l – /l/

ŀ – /w/

n – /n/

ń – /ɲ/

ṅ – /ŋ/

m – /m/

p – /p/

r – /r/

s – /s/

ś – /ɕ/

ṡ – /ʂ/

t – /t/

v – /v/

y – /j/

z – /z/

ź – /ʑ/

ż – /ʐ/

vowels:

a – /a/

e – /ɛ/

i – /i/

ı – /ɨ/

o – /ɔ/

u – /u/

ả – /ã/

ẻ – /ɛ̃/

ỉ – /ĩ/

ỏ – /ɔ̃/

ủ – /ũ/

palatalisation:

the dots under the vowels serve as an indicator of palatalisation of the preceding consonant:

ạ ẹ ị ọ ụ

for example:

rạ -> /rʲa/

lẹ -> /lʲɛ/

sị -> /sʲi/

kọ -> /kʲɔ/

mụ -> /mʲu/

[igoryelin]

I'm moving out this month and I'm too stressed to really focus on anything, so I haven't been drawing or posting recently. But I finally managed to make a very simple drawing (i promise i will make something more ambitious one day) of one of my characters after a monthly break. So this is Monṡan (/mɔn.ʂan/) from Northern Asam.

That's all, see you in a month.

[igoryelin]

"Kạm yo mủnkạmtọń mủn kụr kọ. Musa nẹh mah ḍảyun ỏḣ sanran."

/kʲam jɔ mũn.kʲam.ʈʲɔɲ mũn kʲur kʲɔ/

/mu.sa ɲɛh mah d͡ʒã.jun ɔ̃x san.ran/

"At birth, identical twins' souls are identical. During their lives, they become different people."

[igoryelin]

I hate trying to come up with original names for my characters, places and everything else for my worldbuilding just to google it and see that it's not original at all........

[igoryelin]

you are so cool what the hell

I'm working on something very similar to you; your work is very inspiring!

Thank you so much! Reading this made my day a bit better :)

It's so motivating to know that someone actually finds what I do cool because I haven't felt like doing anything recently.

I love seeing people work on stuff similar to what I do!! Good luck with that, it looks really good so I hope you stay more motivated than me.

[igoryelin]

I use only the phonemes I can pronounce correctly in my conlang because I'm the only one who will ever try to do it anyway. Also I'm super biased so if I can say them it means they're obviously the best.

[igoryelin]

Women of the North.

The text in my conlang (on the top) simply says:

"ḣỏ modỏ" /xɔ̃ mɔ.dɔ̃/ – "tradition is the most important"

[igoryelin]

Your script looks awesome! May i ask how it works? Also what language is it for?

Thank you so much for the compliment!

The truth is that I'm a total amateur and barely know what I'm doing, for now I just want it to look cool. The script is a logography, and the basic characters are one syllable long (and I try not to make them too complex. i came up with some radicals I combine but I'm not VERY strict about their meaning and usage as long as it still makes sense). For now I was thinking that one character = one basic word/concept and you just make longer, more complex words by combining them (yeah, typical logography). Since the words are usually short then 2 characters could easily be combined into one (like.....squished together). 4 could be combined into one too but the result could be terrifying. But then what if it's 3 characters? I have no idea and need to think about it, it's still an experimental feature. But I can say for sure that the writing directions are left to right and top to bottom or top to bottom and left to right.

The language is my nameless conlang which I'm only starting to develop (although its temporary name is the Arctic/Northern language because it's for a country in my worldbuilding project that's located in the Arctic/very far North (which is not exactly like Earth's Arctic)). It's a bit like Russian/Polish and Vietnamese/Chinese's ugly child.

I might not be as serious about it as most people here seem to be (which I admire), but I find it super fun and I'm doing it just for myself so I don't need it to be perfect from the very beginning:)

[niniralin]

Nice! Do you wanna talk a bit about the worldbuilding?

[igoryelin]

Sure, I will probably talk about it more in the future but I can quickly describe the most important stuff.

I've been working on this for a good year but a LOT has changed. I've never been into writing/worldbuilding fantasy so it's more like.....an Earth-like place that's just....a pretty normal place. I focus on the culture, language, religion, history and a tiny bit of politics. For now I focus on only one country (a big one in the North, almost 3 million square kilometres, but the population is maybe 20 million people). The continent stretches very far North so I'm thinking about the country containing the North Pole.

It actually started as something that to most people would seem like a cheap North Korea's knock-off but frozen. Communist, very isolated, very authoritarian and super against any type of defiance. Additionally super serious about their state atheism. But over the time I started to change a lot of stuff, focusing on what would actually suit their culture the most. Now it is a very traditional and religious country, with communities being super important to people, but still authoritarian with a one-party system. The religion is mostly worshipping the ancestors and spirits of the Arctic and living in harmony with everything, but they do have a bunch of rules they have to follow. For hundreds of years after the unification of the Arctic tribes (like...into one country) only religious leaders could become rulers of the country. I still don't have a name for the country so I keep calling it "the Arctic" which is pretty lame, but I will come up with something eventually.

Another thing is that I love biology and everything being frozen in the Arctic seems a bit boring, so I want them to have a bit more plants in there. Like.......plants that adapted to the life there. Not too much of them, but I like the idea of some big plants that managed to somehow grow in such conditions even if it's not fully realistic.

[igoryelin]

I haven't posted my art online in like 7 years but I recently found this drawing from January and I think it's super cute.

Just a girl from the North and her sheep.

[igoryelin]

I drew it again and even though it's worse than the original it's still cute so I have to post it somewhere.

[igoryelin]

Your script looks awesome! May i ask how it works? Also what language is it for?

Thank you so much for the compliment!

The truth is that I'm a total amateur and barely know what I'm doing, for now I just want it to look cool. The script is a logography, and the basic characters are one syllable long (and I try not to make them too complex. i came up with some radicals I combine but I'm not VERY strict about their meaning and usage as long as it still makes sense). For now I was thinking that one character = one basic word/concept and you just make longer, more complex words by combining them (yeah, typical logography). Since the words are usually short then 2 characters could easily be combined into one (like.....squished together). 4 could be combined into one too but the result could be terrifying. But then what if it's 3 characters? I have no idea and need to think about it, it's still an experimental feature. But I can say for sure that the writing directions are left to right and top to bottom or top to bottom and left to right.

The language is my nameless conlang which I'm only starting to develop (although its temporary name is the Arctic/Northern language because it's for a country in my worldbuilding project that's located in the Arctic/very far North (which is not exactly like Earth's Arctic)). It's a bit like Russian/Polish and Vietnamese/Chinese's ugly child.

I might not be as serious about it as most people here seem to be (which I admire), but I find it super fun and I'm doing it just for myself so I don't need it to be perfect from the very beginning:)

[igoryelin]

i just discovered ibis paint i love ibis paint now

also these characters got squished. just testing something out.

[igoryelin]

what about this monstrosity