Martian Alphabet

This is the Martian alphabet I designed for the Arcane Mars setting, associated with Astral Arcana.

I constructed it using the FontStruct website. It's a rather painstaking way to build a font, but fun in it's own way. A bit like playing with building blocks, in fact. It came out slightly more angular and geometric than I would like, but it's still very close to my original hand-written version, and overall I'm quite pleased with it. Anyone who wants to use this font is welcome to. You can find it here: [link]

This is by no means a representation of an actual fictional language, such as those invented by Tolkien or other authors. For my Martian language, I used an old and extremely simple trick which I have used many times before (especially when I was a little kid and couldn't come up with anything more advanced). I refer to this system as a "Language Key," but it's really just a basic letter-substitution system like those used in the sort of "secret codes" (gasp!) found on the backs of cereal boxes and so forth.

Using the Martian language key is pretty straightforward, but can get a little tricky if you want all your martian words to sound right, and all your martian writings to be spelled correctly and accurately. (Of course, there's nothing stopping anyone from just using a jumble of random Martian glyphs and calling it a "variant dialect," but there's definitely something fun about being able to translate exotic writings...)

The short version is this: To write English words, use the column labeled "English Letter" to select the correct glyphs. To write Martian words, use the column labeled "Martian Sound" instead.

If you've downloaded the Arcane Mars font, it's even easier. Just type whatever you want in English and it will automatically use the correct Martian glyphs. That's all. Type "B," "A" and "D," and you've got the word "bad," written as a native Martian would write it.

THIS IS WHERE IT GETS COMPLICATED

Seriously, you don't have to read the rest unless you're a crazy detail-obsessed geek like me. I'll try to be as clear as possible--here we go.

Pronouncing Martian Words:

To figure out how they would pronounce the word "bad" for example, check the key above. The third column ("Martian Sound") tells you how this would sound when spoken in the Martian language. Since the letter B's Martian sound is "P" or "Ph", we know that the Martian word for "bad" starts with one of those sounds (to decide which, choose the one that sounds best to you--I chose the "ph" in this case). Thus "A" sounds like "O," and "D" sounds like "F." This gives us the full sound of the Martian word for "bad," which is "phof."

So that part's not too tough. Type "Bad" on your computer, and the font spells it out as it would be pronounced by a Martian ("phof").

Writing Martian Words:

The real trick comes when we want to write distinctly Martian words with the Martian letters. One example would be the largest city on Arcane Mars: the ancient city-state of Utar-Uruk. If we simply type it out on the computer: U-T-A-R U-R-U-K (or if we use the English letters from the first column to write the glyphs by hand), we get a cool-looking bit of writing but the Martian sounds are all wrong. Some poor Martian trying to read that will sound it out according to the Martian sounds and get a jumbled bunch of nonsense that doesn't sound like Utar-Uruk at all. So if we want to write Martian words properly, we need to select the letters based on the Martian sounds, NOT the English letters. So if we choose the letter associated with the Martian sound "U," we see that it is associated with the English letter "I," so we type that to get the correct glyph. Continuing this, we end up typing an odd string of English letters ("Irec-Iciy") that nonetheless gives us a word that actually sounds like "Utar-Uruk" when we check the Martian sounds.

Making it sound cool:

The following rules can help you to design fun new Martian names and smooth out awkward translations—use them as you see fit, and always go with what sounds best to you, bearing in mind that the Martian language should have a quasi-Egyptian sound to it, if possible.

If undesired clumps of consonants appear, break them up with hyphens, apostrophes or additional vowels, thus “John” becomes “Belosh” and “scribe” becomes “nur’tupa.” Words with the combos th, sh, ng, ch, ph, wh, gh may drop the second vowel, thus “Sharon” becomes “Nothesh” instead of the more awkward “Nlothesh.” Also, feel free to drop a letter now and then or change one letter to a similar letter to smooth the translation, such as “o” into “u” or “t” into “d,” etc. As a guide, try saying the translated word aloud and see if it is easy to say and pleasant-sounding, or if it needs some subtle tweaks. Alternately, break out the thesaurus and try some related words if the translation proves hopelessly awkward.

Place names usually end with hyphenated suffixes. The world of Mars is known to Martians as “Voth-uyeth.” Cities usually end in “-Uruk,” such as Rosod-Uruk (“Canal-City”).

Colors may also be useful in names—here are a few basics already translated:

Black (aphesk)
White (ujetik)
Red (thiva)
Orange (etosha)
Yellow (kad’dei)
Green (jathag)
Blue (phedia)
Purple (ushu’we)
Brown (ptheysh)
Grey (h’tak)

As a final rule, try to have fun with the Martian language. If it's getting to be too much of a headache, just toss out the rules and play around with it. Toss in some ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, or even purely made-up words and names--whatever sounds fun to you. Don't let it drive you crazy!