#high sith

So, High Sith should be a phonetic alphabet, where each letter corresponds to a syllable used in the Sith language.

Some of these letters will be variations of other letters; similar to each other in the way that the sounds will be similar, or a combination of letters where two sounds would be combined.

So--what sounds are in the Sith language?

Wiki: The phonetic palette of the Sith language consisted of 23 phonemes or speech sounds. There were approximately 11 obstruents and 6 or 7 sonorants: /t/, /d/, /k/, /q/, /m/, /n/, /ts/, /dz/, /s/, /z/, /h/, /t͡ʃ/,/j/ /ʃ/, [ɹ/l], /w/, /ʎ/. Accordingly, the graphemic system to represent these was t, d, k, q, m, n, ts, dz, s, z, h, ch, j, sh, r/l, w, y.

There were also 6 distinct vowels: i or i (with "ee" sound) æ or â (as in "bash") u or u (as in "suit") ʌ or û (as in "club") oʊ or o (as in "toad") ɑ or a (as in "ah"). In addition, a and o would combine with i to make diphthongs: oi (as in "toy") and ai (as in "buy"). The epenthetic vowel was /u/.

What I'm getting from this is that the vowel sounds they have sound like this: ee, aaaaah!, oo, uh, oh, ahh, oi/oy, and eye. And their consonants included: t, d, k, q, m, n, ts, dz, s, z, h, ch, j, sh, r/l (<- the sound used in Japanese, I'm assuming), w, and y. Vowels plus consonants=25, the wiki says I'll need 29-30. Both are find, we have enough characters on the page of the Spellbook of Freedon Nadd to fulfill this.

Some of the characters look like each other, so I'm going to assume their sounds are similar in this alphabet.

Similar sounds: d & dz & z, s & h & sh

Similar characters:

I’m going to say the dots mid-level with the letters are periods. The dashes at the top of some letters can also be removed. This means that what I thought was this is actually this:

I do not think the circles are letters. I think they are something else. I do not think the L-shapes are letters. If the multiple sets of lines mean something in the vein of emphasis, then the circle with lines coming out of it like the sun is in fact just a circle. I do not think that weird hook of page two (not the green one) is a letter, either. If it does not have a meaning all in its own (like kanji), then it is something along the lines of ‘(‘ or ‘:’. Then again, to the first thought, perhaps it is a symbol denoting that everything below it has to do with a certain subject.

There's just way too many characters. I wouldn't expect one and a half pages of Freedon Nadd's spellbook to include every letter of the alphabet, yet even if it does, it exceeds the necessary number of characters needed for the Sith language.

This leaves me with two options: I can either pick and choose the letters I want to keep in and ignore the rest (either based on which I like the best/think represent the language well or those I am most confident are letters on their own), or I could abandon the idea of similar or characters representing similar sounds and only leave the letters that look nothing alike, ignoring variations and hoping that pairs it down.

As for the colors blocks, I think it's like Protobesh. Protobesh can be written horizontally or vertically, and important words were sometimes written in cartouches (circled.) I think that the High Sith equivalent of that is color.

Ongoing theory is that the writing can be written up and down, but the letters flip vertical.

First I noticed that the two highlighted characters looked the same, just flipped sideways:

Then I found another—the cursive-‘r’-looking shape also had a sideways counterpart in the large writing (usually vertical) outside of the main text:

This leads me to believe that when the writing is meant to be read vertically, the characters flip sideways. Either that, or the book is meant to be turned so that it can be read sideways again, but that seems like a hassle, especially when the header text looks so purposefully placed and bordered.

Of course, we’ll have to see if this actually pans out.

Anyway:

Validation! Look at Kittât (not to be confused with ur-Kittât)

"Note that some consonants combine with w and y to form complex characters:" My earlier theory of High Sith characters having similarities to each other due to them being combined/having adaptations seems more likely.

(I know that Kittât is not High Sith, and may in fact be predated by it--I'm still not clear on that--it's still the same language family.)

+ I think this means it is a phonetic alphabet.

First Thought: Numbers!

I noticed that one of the characters I have written down looks very much like a number in Common Sith.

Some of these could be numbers! Not many of them, to be fair; it’d be incredibly unlikely to have 0-9 all on the page we can see. Regardless, I’d forgotten this possibility.

Also:

"While some supplemented the hieroglyphic writing to create a style for ecclesiastical uses, which was more ornate than its mundane counterpart"

Okay, High Sith is a combination of ancient Sith Hieroglyphs and new writing; it is not just descended from the hieroglyphs.

Second Thought: the Sith language may only have 23 sounds, but Kittat, another script for the same language, had 37 glyphs. High Sith might have more than 23.

This is because they have letters for consonant clusters, like ‘mw'.

Kittat wiki: Due to its various ecclesiastical uses (such as incantations and ritual writing), the Kittât might in fact be High Sith, but neither the Book of Sith nor Speak Like a Sith have specified it.

Yeah, we’re going to be ignoring this. I trust Freedon Nadd, he was an actual Sith Lord, and that’s definitely not what he was writing.

So, if we count numbers, the borrowed hieroglyphs, and the letters for consonant clusters, no wonder we had so many characters (maybe.)

So, which ones are hieroglyphs?

Look. Here’s Exar Kun with some ancient hieroglyphics.

Do you see?

That b*tch is a hieroglyph!!

It is a stretch? Maybe, but I have nothing else to consult, so it’s real, now. And anyway, Freedon Nadd was writing in cursive, things are going to look a little weird.

The ‘u’ is in there, too.

So, the Sith scribes supplemented in some of this and added some new stuff to create an ornate script for ecclesiastical purposes.

Turns out hieroglyphs can mean an idea, a word, or a sound. Not pleased.

Option A: the hieroglyphs were logographic/ideographic (each is a word), and were added in to a complete new set of syllabic characters to make High Sith. Added, not included.