Minhast: Difference between revisions

The Minhast script is called ''Tašširkantaft'', which literally means "that which is scratched across a surface".  

File:Minhast_Script.jpg|'''The Tašširkantaft'''

Although the Tašširkantaft is based on the Baybayin, several differences can be found between the two.  Several Minhast innovations arose, partly from the influence of the materials used for writing, and the addition of characters from the older Minhast ideographic-logographic script.  Comparisons and contrasts are enumerated as follows:

The relationship between the glottal stop in the Baybayin and that of the Tašširkantaft is recognizable.  The Tašširkantaft glyph for <d> is actually an inverted form of the Baybayin glyph for <t>.  Similarly, the Tašširkantaft glyph for <z> is descended from the Baybayin glyph &lt;s&gt;.  Other discernable similarities can be found with the glyphs <l> and <m>.  Some phonemes not found in the Tagalog or Ilocano languages were innovated, but these innovations came from a method of deriving additional glyphs from a base glyph from which certain classes of phonemes could be derived.

The Tašširkantaft was modified from the original Baybayin to map a base glyph and its variants to certain related phonemes (e.g. the base glyph &lt;b&gt; and its variants to the labial consonants).  For example, the glyphs for the labials &lt;b&gt;, &lt;p&gt;, and <f> are based on the glyph &lt;b&gt;.  Additions of dashes to the base glyph distinguish voiced, unvoiced, and fricatives.  This explains why there is less variability in the Tašširkantaft script.  The glyphs for the dentals /d/ and /t/ in the Baybayin are represented by two separate glyphs that have no resemblance to each other; in contrast the glyphs in the Tašširkantaft for these same phonemes differ from each other only by the addition of a dash to the base glyph <d> to derive the glyph <t> .  As can be seen from the chart, the voiced consonant is assigned the base glyph, and dashes are added to this base glyph for unvoiced and fricatives for a given phonemic class (labials, dentals, aleveolars, etc). The Tašširkantaft is thus more economical.

Each glyph of the Tašširkantaft has a default underlying vowel /a/; all other vowels must be marked explicitly attached to the vowel signs (indicated in the lower right-hand corner; the box is simply a representation of where the base glyph would be located). Long vowels are represented by a vertical dash through the diamonds representing the short vowels &lt;u&gt; and &lt;e&gt;, and a horizontal one between the diamonds of the vowel &lt;i&gt;.

The Tašširkantaft, unlike the Baybayin, is written vertically, from right to left.

One striking difference between the two writing systems is the angularity of the Tašširkantaft vs. the Baybayin.  The Tašširkantaft consists of straight lines and is very angular, whereas the Baybayin is wavy.  This is because the Tašširkantaft was originally carved into wooden planks, as is still done today among the Salmon Speakers; writing on a hard writing surface is easier with straight lines than curvy shapes.   

Another difference, as mentioned earlier, is the addition of glyphs from the older native script.  This script was largely ideographic, but a few glyphs were determinatives used to indicate case or even verbal tense.  Glyphs for common words, such as conjunctions, connectives, existential particles, and negators were added to the Tašširkantaft.  Some of these glyphs are combinations of two glyphs, as in the glyph for ''hambin'' ("there is no X"), which is a combination of the negator ''hatāʔ'' and ''matti'' ("there is an X").  The characters for the case clitics ''=(a)ran'' (Dative), ''=ni'' (Benefactive), ''=yar'' (Ablative), ''=par'' (Instrumental), etc. can actually appear before a verb written in the Tašširkantaft, in which case these characters represent the Applicative affixes ''-dut-'', ''-rak-'', ''-raħk-'', ''-ngar-'', respectively.

The following graphic demonstrates how the Tašširkantaft letters map to the corresponding Baybayin letters from which they were derived:

Baybayin_vs_Tašširkantaft.jpg|Mapping of Tašširkantaft to Baybayin Characters