Kapunuan
Kapunuan was created by Joseph Barretto in 2006. He imagined a writing
system inspired by trees and created by a people who revered them. The
word kapunuan is Tagalog for a group of trees, but also means source or beginning.
Notable Features
- Written in horizontal lines from left to right and top to bottom
- Consonants are represented by letters. Vowels are represented by diacritics.
Each letter is composed of four parts: trunk, branch, fruit, and air.
- Trunks are grouped by order depending on the family of sounds.
- The branch is constant.
- Fruits distinguish the members of each trunk order.
- The air is a placeholder for the vowel (or vowels) that follows the consonant.
Just as air gives life to trees, a vowel gives life to a consonant and gives it a sound.
Additional Notes
- The vowel diacritics are written in the "air" placeholder of the
consonant which precedes them. If vowels appear at the beginning of
a word, the diacritics are written above the "trunk" of the consonant
that follows them. A special vowel carrier (first order trunk, no fruit)
is used for vowels that stand alone.
- Vowels can be stacked vertically if one follows another. They are
read from top to bottom.
- There are three shorthanded endings: -s (or -es), -ing, and -ed. Two
dots under a letter represent a double consonant.
- There are two special abbreviations:
Consonants
The following chart represents the six trunk orders and the six types
of fruits possible within each order.
Trunks and fruits combine to form the following letters:
Vowel Diacritics
Punctuation
Numerals
Sample text in the Kapunuan
Transliteration
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They
are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another
in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
If you have any questions about Kapunuan, you can contact Joseph Barretto
at joopynyc[at]yahoo[dot]com
Other scripts invented by Joseph Barretto:
Bagoyin,
Empisava,
Kapunuan
Other writing systems invented by visitors to this site
Learn Chinese Characters with the Omniglot Chinese app
