Constructed scripts for languages and number systems

15 readers

1 users here now

This is a community for sharing representations of language and number systems. Share any system you develop for any purpose, from fictional world building to alternative texts for real languages such as Shavian. Share what you create or interesting scripts you've found. Scripts can be for languages, number systems, or even other things like magic systems.

founded 11 months ago

MODERATORS

hex_m_hell

Kaktovik Hex - Featural compact binary/base16 (slrpnk.net)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by hex_m_hell to c/conscripts

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hex characters 0-F don't visually provide any information about the underlying binary. I can't tell from reading 0-F representations of hex if a specific bit is set or not. It's necessary to convert to binary to notice things like parity set to odd/even/none. But raw binary isn't compact enough to easily look at.

Kaktovik Hex is a compact binary and hex representation based on some of the ideas behind Kaktovik Inupiaq. It supports the same visual arithmetic as Inupiaq, but also supports things like visual XOR. The bits of each nibble are represented as either | (for ones), V (for 2), or empty (for 0). The lower two bits are on the bottom, the upper two are rotated on the top. Every symbol can be written without lifting a pen.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] exposable_preview 2 points 10 months ago (4 children)

This is very cool. So cool in fact that I want to contribute with some suggestions:

The part which I like the most is the ability to visualize how the numbers are constructed by adding parts together, and especially the fact that it (at least in my mind) reflects the binary representations. I'm specifically talking about the fact that to get a 3 you add the 1 to the RIGHT of the 2. The consistency is however broken with the number 15, supposedly for the easy of writing? I would prefer the 15 to look more like 3 / 7
There is some visual inconsistency with the 9, which has curved edges as opposed to all the rest (I don't mind the 0)
In addition to the previous point, I see the point (hah) as kind of a forced addition, despite it making sense, as I suppose you'd start confusing 9 and 11 / 13

After thinking about the above, I've made my own variation If the image is not clear enough, I've got a PDF which looks much better and I'll share somehow.

The main difference is the change of 8, which makes the >8s more consistent, and reduces the level of confusion. I've also added stroke order suggestions. My variation can also be written without lifting the pen off the paper, but for consistency's sake there are some symbols which I'd rather write with 2 strokes. I don't find that too bad though.