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Argent

Can either one of you, pretty please, tell us if Alethi was inspired by the Elian Script?

Peter Ahlstrom

It was not. The inspiration for the shapes was an EKG readout.

Brandon Sanderson

He might be speaking of the Thalyen script, which looks more like the Elian script than Alethi does.

Argent

Right. I was thinking Alethi glyphpairs, which seem to share some ideas with Thaylen letters.

Brandon Sanderson

The glyphpairs are more Chinese influenced. But Isaac will have to answer on Thaylen.

Isaac Stewart

Late to this conversation (forgot password!) Similarities to any Earth scripts is coincidental.

Argent

I was thinking more conceptually, less visually. Just trying to crack the writing system :)

Isaac Stewart

Thaylen and Alethi are related kinda in the same way Korean hanja and Chinese chars are related.

Peter Ahlstrom

Do you mean hangul? Since hanja and Chinese characters are pretty much the same thing.

Isaac Stewart

I defer to Peter on this one. :) And add a small RAFO, which looks a lot like 'rafo.'

Oudeis16

Who made the script? Was it Isaac? Ben? Is the diacritic mark (that phrasing surely is spoilerless) something you guys canonically have, and is it something Team Dragonsteel would be willing to show the fans?

Brandon Sanderson

Isaac is in charge of the scripts of Stormlight. I give him words of description, and he makes the actual pictures--and does a wonderful job. I've told him he can explain the methodology.

One thing to keep in mind is that we can't often do 100% in-world text for things like this, as (unlike Tolkien) I haven't fabricated the entire language. I've got bits and chunks, but not nearly enough to write in-world with full linguistics. So it's often "interpreted" for the audiences by writing it out in an Earth language, then writing it out using the Women's Script.

This means you're not getting it exactly as it would appear in-world, if it were a real language. It's an approximation. (At least for now.)

Oudeis16

Yes, I totally get that part. Like the "steel alphabet", when we see it it's mostly just being used as a code for English.

I don't know if you recall something like this off the top of your head, but is there an actual H in the script, or is that sound only produced by way of the diacritic mark? Like, the name Tarah. Is she T-A-R-A-T(marked), or honestly just T-A-R-A-H natively?

Brandon Sanderson

The "H" is a mark, as you suspect. You put it on another letter, transforming it into an "H" sound, but otherwise letting the word look symmetrical.