Women's Script

This is my final (for now [1]) post about the writing systems from Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive. As far as I understand, Brandon comes up with a general idea for how the writing system should function and then Isaac Stewart, Brandon's in-house artist, does the legwork of designing the letters. The women's script is the alphabet that is read by women on the planet of Roshar. It was designed to look like waveforms.[2][3] It is written left to right and has no punctuation except for a vertical line at the beginning of a passage that establishes the maximum character height. This is useful because some characters are identical except for their size.[4] Rosharans also like things to be symmetrical, so they often try to make their names have reflectional symmetry.[5][6] Let's see what my family's names look like written in the women's script. (And we'll just ignore that I, a man, am writing it.)

Looking at the names of several of the characters in The Stormlight Archive, I've noticed a few trends:

• Vowels always occur alone, never in clusters
• Consonants can appear alone or in pairs[7]
• Names are typically 6–7 letters long
• The degree of symmetry reflects the caste of the person bearing the name[8]

I won't say these are rules (since neither Brandon nor Isaac has explicitly said so), but I will still follow them since they will produce names that are similar to those found in the books.

We'll start with my first name, Matthew. The letters that are available require that I transliterate my name as M-A-TH-Y-U. To make it consistent with the trends noted above, I'm going to spell it M-A-TH-Y-U-V. My name, as written is poorly symmetrical. None of the letters are repeated. The M and the V are both from the "P group" and the A and the U are both from the "E group". The TH and the Y are not from the same group. If we were to score the symmetry of my name [9], it would be 0.333.

The letters that are available require that I transliterate my last name as K-R-U-K. To make it consistent with the trends noted above, I'm going to spell it K-U-R-R-U-K. The name is perfectly symmetrical, so its score would be 1.000. And here's what my full name looks like:

The line through the middle is just used to keep the letters lined up and isn't actually necessary. Also note that while the letters are supposed to be written vertically, they typically slant to the right, just like penmanship with roman letters typically slants to the right.

Next up is Leann. The letters that are available require that I transliterate her name as L-I-A-N. To make it consistent with the trends noted above, I'm going to spell it L-I-N-L-A-N-A. The score for her name (taking into account the syllabic symmetry [9] and pairing the A at the end with an empty position at the beginning) would be 0.500. And here's what her full name looks like:

Next up is Lilli. The letters that are available require that I transliterate her name as L-I-L-I-A-N. To make it consistent with the trends noted above, I'm going to spell it L-I-L-L-A-N-I. The score for her name (the I at the end is paired with an empty position at the beginning) would be 0.500. And here's what her full name looks like:

Next up is Lincoln. The letters that are available require that I transliterate his name as L-I-N-K-U-N. To make it consistent with the trends noted above, I'm going to spell it L-I-G-E-K-U-N. The score for his name would be 0.500. And here's what his full name looks like:

The letters that are available require that I transliterate his name as L-I-V-A-I. To make it consistent with the trends noted above, I'm going to spell it L-I-V-V-A-R. The score for his name would be 0.667. And here's what his full name looks like:

And that's it!

---

Notes:

[1] If Brandon introduces another writing system, then I'll probably foist that one upon you, too.

[2] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waveform.

[3] See https://coppermind.net/wiki/Women's script.

[4] For example, e, a, and o are all a vertical line. The a is 2/3 as tall as the e and the o is 1/3 as tall as the e (and 1/2 as tall as the a). In some cases, not knowing the maximum character height would make it difficult to know which letter was meant by a vertical line.

[5] For example, the word Roshar has five letters: R-O-SH-A-R. It starts and ends with an R. The two vowels (O and A) are both vertical lines (so they look similar). And the SH anchors the reflection.

[6] When the same letter can't be used, the next best thing is to use another letter from the same group. There are five groups of letters that are drawn similar to each other:

• the "E group" (E, A, O, U, I)
• the "T group" (T, D, R, TH, L)
• the "S group" (S, Z, N, SH, H)
• the "P group" (P, B, M, F, V)
• the "K group" (K, G, Y, CH, J)

[7] Here are some examples of names with pairs of consonants: Shallan and Jasnah.

[8] In the current era of Roshar, people with light-colored eyes (e.g., light blue, light green, light yellow, light grey, or violet) are called lighteyes and can belong to any of the 10 highest ranks, called dahns. People with dark-colored eyes (e.g., dark blue, dark green, brown, black, or dark purple) are called darkeyes and can belong to any of the 10 lowest ranks, called nahns.

[9] Here is my methodology:

1. Split the name in half.
2. For each pair of letters on either side of the split that are the same letter, award 2 points.
3. For each pair of letters on either side of the split that belong to the same letter group, award 1 point.
4. For each pair of letters on either side of the split that don't belong to the same letter group, award 0 points.
5. For each syllable on either side of the split that repeats the same letters, award 1.5 points for each repeated letter.
6. Divide the points earned by the points possible (i.e., if the name were perfectly symmetrical).

Step 5 bears some explaining. Take the name Renarin. R⇌N belong to different groups, so 0 points; E⇌I belong to the "E group" so 1 point; N⇌R belong to different groups, so 0 points; A⇌A is repeated, so 2 points. At this point the name has scored 3/8 = 0.375. While Renarin isn't as symmetrical as Renanir, there is still some symmetry implied by REN⇌RIN. Awarding points for this syllabic symmetry raises the score for the name to 6/8 = 0.750.