The Ákat logographical script

The purpose of the logographic script is to explicitly demonstrate the philosophical roots underpinning the language. The script employs some 300 different glyphs to represent core concepts, together with a series of sur-glyphs and sub-glyphs to show the word's object class, derivation type and grammatical purpose.

The simplest way to introduce the script is through an example:

Core concept glyphs

Core concepts are not words; rather they are the concepts that lie behind the words - according to the Nakap philosophers. For this reason, a core concept glyph can be used for a range of words which somehow relate to the core concept, both on its own and in combination with other core concept glyphs; for instance the core concept glyph 'fak' (experience) can be found in the glyph columns representing the action and object words 'sense', 'hearing', 'heat detection', 'smell', 'taste', 'acceptance', 'sympathy', 'experience' and 'ear'.

cof	cus	fak	fas	fit	fus
set	suf	sut	sys	tap	tex
tis	tos	xat	xes	xof	xuq

The above glyphs are just a small selection of available core concept glyphs.

Object class, and action aspect, sub-glyphs

The logographic script uses the same set of sub-glyphs to represent object/action case, object number and action aspect:

á or wa	à or ja	na	sa or za	ta or da
é or we	èi or je	nei	sei or zei	tel or del
ó or wo	òi or jo	noi	soi or zoi	tol or dol
ú or wu	ù or ju	nu	su or zu	tu or du
ý or wy	ỳ or jy	ny	syhn or zyhn	tyhn or dyhn
úa or wua	ùa or jua	nua	zua	dua
úe or wue	ùe or jue	nue	zue	due
úo or wuo	ùo or juo	nuo	zuo	duol
úy or wuy	ùy or juy	nuy	zuy	duyl

Derivation type sub-glyphs:

The effect of deriving new words from existing words through the derivation models will sometimes have a profound effect on the phonology of the new word. The logographic script acknowledges this by placing a derivation model sub-sigil beneath the modifying core concept, both of which will follow the host concept.

type 1	type 2	type 3	type 4	type 5	type 6
type 7	type 8	type 9	type 10	type 11	type 12

Modification sur-glyphs

Agent, patient and oblique objects, and also action phrases, can be modified to provide further information about how they interact with each other within the clause or sentence. The logographic script uses a set of related sur-glyphs above the objects and actions to demonstrate this modification. Because derived object words will span more than one column, these come in short, long and extra-long versions; in actions, only the short versions are used (except for the default). The short versions of each sur-glyph are shown below:

Modifier family	agent/patient objects	oblique objects	actions
unmodified		n/a
ci family
e family
fi family
hri family		n/a	n/a
ki family
li family		n/a	n/a
mi family
myl family	n/a
ni family
o family
si family
ti family
xi family
xyl family	n/a

Extended glyphs

Certain action prefixes do not fit neatly into the glyph block system. These are instead given their own, extended glyphs (covering the mid and lower rows of the glyph block) which go before the action phrase column with which they are associated. Actions use these extended glyphs to indicate past tense, negation and interrogation:

nullar	interrogative	negative	interrogative + negative
past	past + interrogative	past + negative	past + interrogative + negative

Whole column glyphs

Objects, on the other hand, prefer their affixes to cover the whole column. These glyphs are similar to their action counterparts, though slimmer. Objects use the action's past tense glyph as a focus marker, and have a special glyph that comes at the end of a person's name, in addition to the interrogative and negative glyphs:

interrogative prefix

negative prefix

focus prefix

place
am

place
ahn

place
ahnks

name
an

name
anxyl

name
axyn

There are also a number of "temporal-existential" glyphs - in actual fact oblique objects formed with the modifier 'xi' and the appropriate concept root - which have been given special whole column glyphs to use in preference to the normal oblique object column:

hneqs or
xihnqes

hnest or
xihnset

hne! or
xihnke!

hnoks or
xihnkos

hniqs or
xihnqis

hnust or
xihnsut

Numbers also get their own whole column glyphs:

Action modal sur-glyphs

Action modality is demonstrated in the logograph through a set of nine sur-glyphs over the action phrase. Just like modifier sur-glyphes, these glyphs come in both short forms and long forms:


greqe	vaqa	puqu

grexe	vaxa	puxu

grembe	vamba	pumbu

Action inflections glyph column

The last sets of glyphs deal with the action phrase's agentive and patientive markers, the agentive determiners and the evidentiality markers. These all form a single column immediately following the action's core concept columns. They stack in the column as follows:

the top row is occupied by the agentive marker
the agentive determiner takes up the upper half of the middle row, while the patientive marker sits below it in the bottom part of the row
the base row is taken up by the evidentiality marker

The agentive and patientive markers share the same glyphs, though the patientive markers are turned 180° to distinguish them:

na	ne	no
wa	we	wo
ja	je	jo	ju	jy
da	de	do	du	dy
za	ze	zo		zy
ahm	ehm	ohm
am	em	om
al	el	ol	ul	yl
at	et	ot	ut	yt
as	es	os		ys

The agentive determiner differs according to whether the action phrase has incorporated an agent object or not:

unmarked	b	d	g	hq	dhx
!	!b	!d	!g	!hq	!dhx

Finally, three evidence markers are added to the base of the column:

unmarked

oks

eqs

Column order within the glyph block

Column order tends to closely follow the order of action and object phrases within the spoken language: reading left-to-right, unincorporated agent phrases go before action phrases, which come before patient phrases and then oblique phrases. When the agent is incorporated into the verb, more often than not the column order remains unchanged, except any action prefix column will go ahead of the agent column.