Ictuk Intro

Basics

Letters: 3 Key Attributes

Every Ictuk letter has three ways you'll encounter it throughout this guide:

Sound: How it's pronounced
Glyph: How it is written in Ictuk
Roman Transliteration: A Latin alphabet representation for teaching and texting

_{The Roman transliteration is not part of everyday written Ictuk.
It only exists for learners to type, search, and discuss
the language without glyphs.}

_{The last sound (bottom right of table) does not have
a letter, and only gets pronounced between vowels.}

Illegal Sound Combinations

The only illegal sound combination in Ictuk is when the same consonant is next to another. Instead, only one of the consonants gets pronounced. For example, "tt" is just pronounced as "t".

Glyph Structures

All letter glyphs stem from zh, meaning every glyph's first stroke should be zh.

Exercises

Listen to, draw, and repeat the sounds of all 15 letters in Ictuk until you are confident
Map the roman letters to your drawn glyphs

Stop!

Before going on, you must be confident with the following goals:

I can identify every glyph, including their sound and Roman equivalent
I can draw each glyph from memory
I can pronounce every sound

Writing

Words

What is a Word?

Unlike English, Ictuk words can translate to a single English word or to whole English phrases, but these words are still seperated by a noticeable gap between glyphs.
Sha kofafashosh ("That is good")

Word Size

Ictuk words vary greatly in length. Because Ictuk words are able to express full English phrases, some words may be longer than you expect.

Pronunciation

Once you've memorized the sounds of the 15 glyphs, you can read and pronounce any written word even if you don't know its meaning.

Important Notes

Glyph Compression

You may have noticed that some glyphs appear more "compressed" with the others. This is simply to reduce visual space wherever possible, and does not change the meaning or pronunciation of the word.

Reading Direction

Ictuk is both horizontal and vertical. Read each column from top to bottom before moving to the next column on the right.

Writing Mediums

Ictuk can be written by hand or digitally. Both use the same writing system, though this guide uses the digital form for clarity.

Capitalization

Ictuk glyphs have no uppercase or lowercase; all glyphs are written in a single form.

Exercises

Draw, read, and sound out the words "fotash", "kofa", "fash", and "tuf"
Attempt to write your name, or how your name would sound, in Ictuk
Draw the following phrase, box out each "word", and number the order it's pronounced in. It's important to note that these "words" are made-up:

Stop!

Before going on, you must be confident with the following goals:

I can read any Ictuk word aloud
I can identify the pronunciation order of words in a written phrase
I can write Roman letters to represent glyphs and vice-versa