Kashobe

Writing System
Written language is etched top-to-bottom and either way horizontally. The point in the symbol for "ɛ" faces the beginning of the paragraph (i.e. left if left-to-right / right if right-to-left). The shapes of each letter are supposed to be crude diagrams of the mouth in order to make that sound (e.g. the letter for /f/ is the top teeth followed by the air escaping from the lip). Voiced consonants are denoted with a single diacritic. Each character represents a syllable and is constructed by a consonant(s) on top and a vowel on the bottom. As the characters were originally etched onto trees with axes, and later into clay with styli, all the characters are formed by straight lines and dots.