The Vulcan alphabet has three main forms:
1. The swirly "musical" writing
2. The "Tibetan" calligraphic style
3. The one on the side of Mr. Spock's shuttle in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"
I've used the decals for the AMT model kit as the basis for my analysis.
It would be nice to say that I have carefully matched the letter forms against the Vulcan alphabet, and then compared them to the Romulan script (which must bear at least some family resemblance to one or more Vulcan writing system), but I haven't. Just coming up with enough unique but similar symbols taxed me to the limit. In the following chart, black represents "established" symbols from the side of the shuttle and orange the ones I've made up for myself.
The biggest problem with this script is the "T'Pau", a Vulcan ship that appeared briefly in "Unification". It has Vulcan writing on the side, but it's just the shuttle decal put on the other way 'round. I have tried to come up with a way of writing "T'Pau" so that it's the exact mirror image of "Surak", but the possibilities were all too silly to be worth botherong with. In the end, I just bodged along as best I could. "Surak" is at the top in the picture below, and "T'Pau" is underneath. You'll notice that Surak's name has a rather unique spelling, but that's how they wrote it.
IMPORTANT!
This is nothing more than a helpful suggestion. Please ignore it altogether if you like, or tear it apart and keep only the bits you want. Having a more "font friendly" version of the alphabet could be helpful for promoting it, and I'm intrigued by the idea that the Vulcans have been civilised for so long that they have a whole unique alphabet just for readouts and displays. Best of luck with your much better, more artistic and attractive Vulcan calligraphy!
by Strauchius on 03 Aug 2011 08:20, last updated on 27 Aug 2012 11:47
