Blockhead Braille Language in Inom | World Anvil
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Blockhead Braille

A language which developed and used in the Blockhead Empire not with the varyingly blind in mind, but the blockheads' natural tendencies towards unlit/dimly-lit housing and limited innate color vision. Blockhead Braille, as Beet-Red has termed it in English, is not frequently employed on Inom, as the Redspawn opt to do their recordkeeping in English, as painted text is quicker to produce, requires simpler tools, and stores more compactly than embossed text. However, BHB is still confirmed employed by the Indies, Slatespawn, and Ashlings in the carving of stone and wood or the embossment of BHB onto surfaces. It's likely that the Midnighters use BHB as well.

Writing System

Unlike normal Braille, BHB is composed of a handful of different basic shapes, which are then combined as necessary onto a three-by-three square gride, forming the symbols that themselves form words: square/diamond/circle (interchangeable & 9 possible positions), rectangle (fills up 1x3 squares, so three horizontal, three vertical, and two diagonal positions), caret/heart (interchangeable, a 2x2 or 2x3 shape occupying three squares, with 48 2x2 positions and 8 2x3 positions), hollow square (can be 2x2, having four possible locations, or 3x3, which occupies either the 8 tiles around the center or only 4 and excludes corners), hollow circle (can be 3x3 or 2x2), and cross (corners or sides). Only the dots fill in their respective tile; the others attempt to take up little space. Crosses notably extend beyond the space that a bar, circle, or square will fill.

Geographical Distribution

Employed on the blockhead homeworld and by the Indies, Slatespawn, Ashlings, and likely the Midnighters as well.

Syntax

Syntax is very direct and unornamented. BHB is meant to be read from bottom to top, left to right. Words are separated by blank spaces and continued or new sentences are begun on a new line. New sentences are begun with a horizontal bar of three dots, to align the finger. Sentence structure is strictly subject-verb-direct object-indirect object, with time, manner, and place being interchangeable and marked by an indicating preposition at both beginning and end of the prepositional phrase.

Vocabulary

The lexicon maintains simplicity by having neither synonyms nor antonyms, replacing them with a collection of prefixes. There is not "Yes" and "no", there is only "yes" and "anti-yes".

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