Ruins Catlang Orthography
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both romanization and Clanscript
This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 7 Jun 2023, 16:48.
[comments] rcforthography
4. rcf poetry
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The romanization scheme used for 
Ruins Catlang Spoken sounds are written outside brackets, shorthand sign descriptions are written within brackets. For instance:
mr[Hc'k'b']
vocalized /mr/
tail start in neutral position
tail flick in direction of own chest
tail flick in direction of own cheek
tail flick in backwards direction
The vocalized part of a mixed sign/spoken word is spoken simultaneously with doing the sign.
Honestly, I hate this ortho because it makes it look like the sign comes after the spoken part, or like the sign descriptions are meant to be spoken. Ideally, I would use some sort of furigana-like arrangement where the sign shorthand goes in little letters above the written sounds, or something like that.
Clanscript
Clanscript isn't a native RCF writing system, but one invented by a couple of my warrior cat OCs in a now long gone RPG, which I yoinked to use for writing down RCF in a way that intelligent cats would conceivably be able to actually do. Conceivably it could have spread via travellers and neighboring territories all the way to the Ruins Colony, but that would be a pretty far distance to spread given the Warrior Cats setting is based in Britain and the Ruins are based on mediterranean Turkey. But then again, a method of delivering messages that can't be forgotten or changed in the relaying and doesn't rely on real-time interaction is a very useful technology to have, so maybe it would spread.
Clanscript is picto/ideographic and the handful of characters I've made up so far are pretty simple, because cats can't really fold back the rest of their paw to use one "finger" to write, nor can they hold a brush or stylus, it's the whole paw or nothing. The usual medium would be prey blood on any flat surface that will hold it, e.g. tree bark or human paper litter for mobile messages, stone or concrete for those that don't have to travel. (In real life I normally use a brush pen.) Characters could conceivably be scratched into dirt/mud instead but that seems like it would be trickier to do with claws.
It's usually written right to left in deference to the fact that most cats are left-pawed, but it could also be written in any other direction. When writing on a vertical surface the lines would likely be written bottom to top, as the higher it is the harder it is for the cat to balance for long; on a horizontal surface they would likely be written top to bottom to avoid stepping on the already-written characters.
The couple times I've written with it I've done left to right, top to bottom, because that's what I'm used to.
It's not really called Clanscript in universe, it would be called something like "cat-made signs" because it was partly inspired by the interpretation of signs and omens by medicine cats, that being the main example of "thing that represents something else (seemingly unrelated if you don't have The Knowledge)".
Reference sheet of existing characters
Poem written ICly in Clanscript (note: this is NOT in RCF, it's in a long abandoned catlang that never actually had any vocab, just grammar)
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The same poem, translated to RCF, in Clanscript (in pencil, ugh)
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idk why you'd want this but rough English backtranslation of the poem. heavily references the events of the RP the IC author was a character in, and his resulting trauma; the second stanza definitely won't make sense without that context.
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