Typographics

Among the various tasks facilitated for the development of a functional reconstruction of P.I.E. there is the subject of typography. This is how the reconstructed speech will be represented in physical form, that is, in writing.

What we have at hand is an enormous wealth of alphabetic symbols that draw from the days of Sumeria, which have evolved alongside language even as it has split into its very distinct subgroups. The first option here is to represent the language with the Latin alphabet, for the following reason of convenience. Typing in the Latin alphabet is something usual and accessible to all the Western world, and it wouldn't require the speakers to learn a new alphabet, since they can already read the Latin one. The Latin alphabet also could represent most of the sounds in the P.I.E. language. Another reason is that there would be no need to expend time and effort to create a new alphabet.

However, since the Latin alphabet has evolved alongside the languages of Europe, it is obvious that the degeneration inherit in our modern tongue has necessarily over time forced the Latin alphabet to change with it, resulting in the fact that many Indo-Aryan sounds are either not represented in the alphabet or that our present alphabet has too many letters that, in the past, would have represented only one sound. This is a large issue especially in the area of declension, and while this may be only a matter of insignificant choice, when we add the aesthetic appeal that we should strive to attain in the alphabet, in order to synchronize with the mind's harmony to the fullest extent, it becomes a real issue. An example already of this divergence in alphabets was the difference in Latin and Greek declension-suffixes. Latin ended the standard word with -us, while Greek ended it with -os, even though they represented the same initial sound. The difference in spelling came about when the languages began to split and differ in pronunciation, therefore molding the alphabetical representation to fit the relative sounds of the modern language of the time.

In this blog, we've been using the common -os suffix (Aros, Namos) as a default declension-suffix because of its wide-spread popularity with other P.I.E. reconstructionists. However, the question is: is this the ultimate aesthetic appeal? We believe it may echo too much of a Greek spelling. The official usage of -os would also imply that "o" strictly represents the sound of the P.I.E. suffix, which may strangle the representation of the true P.I.E. O.

Some alternatives to -os include -us, -is, -as, -es or -ys even. Our current conjecture is that -ys would be of the greatest benefit, since it carries no previous connotation, has never been used to represent this suffix, and has an element of uniqueness. The Y in -ys would be pronounced like the Greek Upsilon, which is similar to the modern German letter Ü. Therefore, Aros would become Arys and Namos would become Namys.

Another possibility would be to not use the Latin alphabet or instead use some other form of writing. This script could be specifically engineered to represent each special sound of the P.I.E. language, and it would probably be derived in style from the Phoenician-style alphabets. Another source for deriving a special alphabet would be to actually go back to the actual hieroglyphic alphabet used by the Indo-Aryans to write their language, though this is tricky because not much evidence is left that would give us hints of what the ancient symbols actually represented. Since the modern alphabet is derived from the old hieroglyphs, its possible to simply attempt to trace which forms each modern letter came from, and if psychonautic science becomes developed enough, we could activate a similar state of mind believed to have been recorded in the myth of Odin's suicide. This means the rediscovery of the old symbols via immersion into the "netherworld" through the subconscious, in a state similar to a coma, in order to find the original symbols (runes) of the Indo-Aryan alphabet and then implement them.

Remnants of past writing systems, which had been lost to us before their unearthing, also offer possible alternatives to devising a functional P.I.E. alphabet. In particular, there is a script dubbed Old Vinca, which may in fact be a preserved form of a pure P.I.E. hieroglyphic alphabet. The symbols are representative both of common objects and animals and sounds used in the language. Sites all over Europe have excavated similar runic inscriptions.

More information on Old Vinca can be found here: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/vinca.htm

In all, for now a simple rendering with the current Latin alphabet suits our purposes. As for the future, no drastic projects are planned yet to construct or reconstruct a script for the reconstructed P.I.E. language, although these thoughts should be kept in mind...