Writing and Language

While little has been written about "spoken" Myuri language in non-Myuri languages, a bit more has been written on their orthography. Because most of the information in Myuri is conveyed non-verbally, their writing system conveys sound, smell, and various elements of body language. Sadly the body language part of the glyphs have been studied minimally. It is known that parts represent ear, tail, body position, whiskers, and graphics akin to illuminating a manuscript. On the right is smell, in the same glyphs as the sound (each pattern represents a scent). Also conveyed are tone (which in Myuri is more important than specific sounds), volume and pitch.

While Myuri can make over 100 sounds, only a relative few are conveyed in writing.

The romanization is a simplified attempt to convey feline sounds in human terms. Cht and chp are variations on a chitter, the sound housecats make when talking to birds for example. R can be used to convey both a purr and a growl, though generally the curve alone without the line beneath it is used to convey a growl and the symbol as above is used for a growl (often romanized r or gr, where a purr is pr or r respectively). The click is a less common sound, but at least superficially resembles clicks in human languages. 

Many sounds in Myuri can be made simultaneously, for example, anything can be said over a purr.  Interestingly, Myuri can convey the same meaning with any set of  phonemes, so long as the non-verbal and the pitch/tone/volume are the same as the normal word, or only the tone/volume change. As such, Myuri trying to speak in human languages will still be conveying the same meaning in Myuri as they speak the human language.

Two example Myuri glyphs are below:

On these the spoken part is circled, being m-r-chp and m-au-cht respectively.

A translation of the first line of Silent Night in Myuri with romanization of the sounds, note that "silent" has no spoken sound.