MARCH 2nd, 2012
FIRST VERSION OF DOCTOR'S COT GALLIFREYAN RELEASED
After much planning and sketching and trials, the first version of the Doctor's Cot Gallifreyan system was released. It started with my love for languages and Doctor Who and one of my favorite languages, Hebrew. The system got it's structure from Hebrew. There are no vowels, just consonants that the vowels can attach to. So, in Hebrew, a word like "shalom" is actually written as "shlm".
This idea made sense because human language pairs sounds together in syllables. Some words are more complicated than others but most syllables involve a consonant and a vowel. Given the circular nature of Gallifreyan, this gave me the opportunity to layer in multiple consonants and vowels into one circle.
One thing that I noticed with the systems is that some of them didn't look screen accurate. My favorite sample was from the Doctor's cot in A Good Man Goes to War and so, as I was creating this system, I strived to focus on those elements in that sample and create a visual language that was as close as possible to the examples from the show while still actually working as a system.
APRIL 17th, 2012
NEW VOWEL ADDED "yeAH" - /æ/ (IPA)
After a month of translations, I realized that I forgot a vowel sound and so I added it to the system in one of the open vowel slots.
JUNE 4th, 2012
FIRST OFFICIAL TRANSLATION REQUEST
Previous requests were just of help with different words or specific sounds but the first official public translation request along the lines of "Could you translate..." came in on June 4th, 2012.
JULY 9th, 2012
NEW VOWEL ADDED "UH" - /ə/ (IPA)
This was the first problematic vowel I ran into. I didn't know it at the time but I was dealing with the schwa vowel which actually varies depending on the language and is very hard to explain in English.
JULY 29th, 2012
SENTENCE STRUCTURE GUIDE RELEASED
With users wanting to translate longer phrases and sentences, a grouping system for words was put in place to condense the design. The grouping system is optional and not mandatory, it can just help clean up designs.
AUGUST 31st, 2012
100 FOLLOWERS ON TUMBLR
SEPTEMBER 21st, 2012
"O MISTRESS MINE" BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE TRANSLATION RELEASED
In honor of my 100 followers, I decided to take on a rather large translation. I chose to do the poem/song "O Mistress Mine" from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night because the final goodbye with one of the Doctor's companions, Rose, was in the episode Journeys End. The line it takes it's name from is "Journey's end in lovers meeting, every wise man's son doth know."
O Mistress Mine by William Shakespeare
O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
DECEMBER 19th, 2012
200 FOLLOWERS ON TUMBLR
DECEMBER 27th, 2012
SPEED-TRANSLATION VIDEO RELEASED
As requested and in celebration of hitting 200 followers, I decided to make a video that shows how I do a translation. I asked for some phrases and the winner was “It’s not impossible; just a bit unlikely” from The Doctor’s Daughter (S04E06)
The translation took me about 45 minutes or so to do but I made the video x3 faster to make it a more manageable 16 mins. There was no audio as I don’t like the sound of my own voice.
JANUARY 31st, 2013
SYSTEM INITIALLY ACCEPTED AS SENIOR DEGREE PROJECT
FEBRUARY 7th, 2013
FIRST TRANSLATION THURSDAY
To help regulate the amount of length of translation requests I was receiving, I created Translation Thursday which limited the requests to three a week and kept them no longer than 12 words. I was starting to basically get paragraph long requests in my inbox and I wasn't able to keep up.
FEBRUARY 18th, 2013
DOCTOR'S COT GALLIFREYAN VERSION 2.0 RELEASED
This new version is an expanded version of the previous system, except converted to IPA. The old system is still compatible but this newer version is more phonetically accurate. It was released with links to outside sources to help with IPA sounds as I was still working on the American English guide.
To expand this properly, two new line weights had to be added as well as four new consonant decorations and one new vowel placement.
The rules were updated and made to be more clear and the description as edited as well.
FEBRUARY 24th, 2013
FIRST TRANSLATION USING THE NEW AND UPDATED SYSTEM
This is the first request since the publishing of the new system and redefined the layout in which I made the translations. This also shows how the system works with a different language.
MARCH 8th, 2013
PRACTICE SHEETS RELEASED
These sheets were designed for people to download and print off and practice breaking down words and phrases and hand-drawing them out.
MARCH 9th, 2013
AMERICAN ENGLISH GUIDE RELEASED
Due to very popular demand, the American English guide was released. This guide switches out the IPA symbols for American English approximates.
MARCH 23rd, 2013
PUNCTUATION GUIDE RELEASED
Many people had asked about punctuation so I responded with this guide. It only deals with audible punctuation. So the apostrophe in "can't" wouldn't be used because it is pronounced like "cant" but rather is used for audible stops. You can hear the inflection in exclamations and questions and when people list things, and end sentences, so all of those are included.
This guide also allows users to write in any direction with the addition of a "start" element.
MARCH 23rd, 2013
BETA RUSSIAN GUIDE RELEASED
I conducted a language poll on my blog and found that there was a strong contingent of Russian speakers who liked my system. Since I don't speak Russian, I got as close as I could to a functional guide and then released it as a beta to my Russian followers to try out.
APRIL 3rd, 2013
300 FOLLOWERS ON TUMBLR
APRIL 16th, 2013
DOCTOR'S COT GALLIFREYAN WEBSITE LAUNCHED
