Tenctonese alphabets   

Origin

The Tenctonese alphabets were created by Joe Hawthorne, a sign writer in the
Fox art department, and were most likely based on Pitman Shorthand. The
alphabets are used in the Alien Nation movies, book and TV shows to write various signs.
The signs are generally in English and transliterated into the Tenctonese alphabet,
rather than in the Tenctonese language. The numerals were developed by Pete Chambers,
president of the Alien Nation Appreciation Society.

The Tenctonese language was originally created for the 1988 Fox film
Alien Nation. The first version of the language was invented by a USC
film school graduate Van Ling, who used sounds from such languages as
Chinese, Samoan and German to make Tenctonese sound Alien to English
speakers.

The version of the Tenctonese language used in the TV shows was created
by Kenneth Johnson and his daughter Juliet. They used a lot of English
words spelt backwards or with their syllables scrambled.

The font used on this page was created by Jeff Lee
(http://www.shipbrook.com/jeff).