Mastodawn

Is it just me, or do all of the #StarTrekDS9 alien languages look like an absolute pain to hand-write?

Cardassian https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Cardassian_language needs a pen with variable stroke width.

Bajoran https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Bajoran_language consists of highly complex pictogram-like glyphs.

Ferengi https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ferengi_language requires variable stroke thickness again, and also requires you to draw flowchart-like lines.

Dominionese https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Dominionese has large filled shapes.

#StarTrek

Cardassian language

The Cardassian language was the spoken and written language of the Cardassians used on Cardassia Prime. Cardassian writing was composed of slender rectangular letters usually widening at the top. Lines of text were written both horizontally and vertically, radiating out from an elaborate circle motif. Lines of text also incorporated dots. (TNG: "Chain Of Command, Part II"; DS9: "Tribunal", "Things Past") By 2259, Starfleet officer Nyota Uhura was familiar with the Cardassian language. She...

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J4YC33 3d ago

@argv_minus_one Cardassian could be written with a caligraphy pen by adjusting the angle of the pen. This is how variable width human language caligraphy is done with italic nibbed pens.

Bajoran probably has a simplified handwritten script, much like modern Chinese.

Ferengi, again with a fountain pen and could be done with a template fairly easily for the angles.

Dominionese likely would have those large shapes outlined only where they are filled by computers, if it even has a handwritten variant. I would guess that the various races have their own languages and Dominonese is a bridge language used almost exclusively digitally.

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J4YC33 3d ago

@argv_minus_one additionally, if Ferengi has characters more like Chinese, or similar to Korean, this could work:

Title:
My topic can only be addressed in specific form. My topic can reliably be considered very complex and difficult to comprehend when junctions are used.

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ARGVMI~1.PIF 3d ago

@j4yc33

So, the Ferengi think non-linearly, in several different directions at once? Fascinating.

I guess that explains why Betazoids can't read them, although I have to wonder how the universal translator is able to turn their speech into the linear form we're familiar with.

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J4YC33

@argv_minus_one I would think so because it allows them the vast amount of doublethink that is necessary to be such exquisite capitalists.

I would think in that way it would be how the UT could translate German or Russian to English. The end of the sentence will change the whole sentence, but the UT is able to keep up somehow.