Qio'ao Script    Qio'ao Script

Qio'ao (pen writing) script was invented on June 7th 2005 by Zach McVay as a means of writing the Iqalu language. Iqalu (pronounced: ih-gwa-loo) was initially written with a Javanese based abugida which was not very efficient as it could not represent some of the compound vowels used in Iqalu. For example, the word for writing in Iqalu is qio' which would have been almost impossible to write in the original system because the shapes and placement of the vowels would not allow for more than one vowel to be used.

The next orthography used for Iqalu was called the Nai'ao (rain writing) script was a Turkish-like form of the Latin alphabet that is now the official script for transliterating Iqalu into the Latin alphabet. All Iqalu words have their Iqalu spelling, and their Nai'ao spelling.

Nai'ao

Aa Áá Ââ Ãã Ää Ee Êê Ëë Gg Ðð Hh Ýi Îî Ïï Iý Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Ôô Öö Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Vv Yy Zz

The Nai'ao script ceased to be used as the official script for Iqalu because it lacked aesthetic value, and could not be used for calligraphy or art because of the blizzard of diacritics that were used in the script.

Therefore the third and official script, the Qio'ao script, was developed using concepts from Trantanese and Korean Hangul, and characters from Chu'nom and Chinese, with a little bit of Japanese Kanji.

The way that Qio'ao was started is quite interesting: Zach took a short text of mixed characters from Chu'nom, and Chinese and worked out a sentence using every sound in Iqalu and said, what if these symbols represented this sentence? So he proceeded to divide up the Chu'nom and Chinese characters into parts and started assigning each part a sound to make it so that the sentence really could be represented by those characters. Since the sentance had all sounds used in Iqalu, we now had every character-piece that was needed to create completely new Iqalu characters.

Notable features

Used to write:

Iqalu - a conlang created by Zach McVay in March of 2005 based on Latin, Portugese, Turkish, and Chinese.

Iqatza - a relative of Iqalu, created in May 2005 to serve as an interesting dialect of Iqalu.

Qio'ao Script

Qio'ao Script

Sample text

Sample text in the Qio'ao Script

Transliteration

Iqua teini alse q'sa'st'n. Sip'res seithis vuyem nao sip'res.

Translation

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)

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