Old Franaderoan

Old Franaderoan alphabet

The Franaderoan or Saconian alphabet is the creation of Alain
Lemaire, who invented it in 1993. He thinks he was inspired by the alphabets or
‘secret’ writings he found in computer games like Commander Keen
(the SGA), and comic books. There might also have been some influence
from Sinhalese, Tamil and Thai.

Internal history

The Old Franaderoan alphabet (Vossin imbranon) is also
known as Padimbra (Sacred Script) or Ghundissanhjroempadimbra
(lit. “first-language-sacred-script or Sacred Script of the First
Language”). The First Language or Ghundissanhjron is the
name for the official Franaderoan language, as it is still spoken
today. Another name is Mhrinngain Imbranon (lit. “Script
of Curves or Curved Script”), because of its rounded or ‘curved’ appearance.

The Old Franaderoan alphabet first appeared some 2,500 years ago.
It was mainly used for religious purposes but got a more worldly use
when Franaderoan literature and playwriting developed. By 500 AD,
it had developed to its present form. During the first half of the
17th century, the Dutch introduced the Latin alphabet in the Saconian
Empire, from which the Saconian-Franaderoan alphabet developed. This
alphabet combines characters from both Latin and Old Franaderoan:
the b, d, f, q and y were almost directly copied from the Old
Franaderoan alphabet, whereas g, s, sh, z and zh were inspired by it.

In the Central Franaderoan Empire (today’s central part of the country)
the Old Franaderoan alphabet was used until the beginning of the 20th
century. Then, the Latin alphabet as it was already used in the Saconian
Empire (it had abandoned the Saconian-Franaderoan alphabet at the end
of the 19th century under Western influence), gradually took over. When
both Empires were united in 1948, the Latin alphabet became the standard
for writing.

Today, both the Saconian-Franaderoan as well as the Old Franaderoan
alphabet have been enjoying increasing interest in both pop culture as
well as academic discourse.

Notable features of the Old Franaderoan alphabet:

written from right to left;
vowels can be indicated using either separate symbols or diacritics.
the ‘a’ is dropped, except: 1) at the beginning of a word; 2) when
stressed; 3) when confusion in pronunciation might arise;
to avoid this, consonant clusters are used to a high degree. The
‘double consonants’ mark the shortening of the vowel preceding it and
the lenghtening of the consonant itself; the other cluster characters
are used for frequently appearing consonant clusters;
vowels in suffixes are usually dropped as well (for exceptions,
see rules under ‘a’).

Because the ‘a’ and vowels in suffixes are usually dropped, but
consonants do not have an inherent ‘a’ like abugidas do, the writing
implies knowledge of the Franaderoan language and vocabulary by the
reader for proper pronunciation.