Artificial script

An artificial or constructed script (also conscript) is term for writing systems which were specifically devised by humans, rather than having naturally evolved as part of a culture like a natural script. They are usually designed for use with conlangs, although several of them also are used in linguistic experimentation.

The most well-known conscripts are J. R. R. Tolkien's elaborate Tengwar and Cirth, but many others exist, such as Alexander Melville Bell's Visible Speech, John Malone's Unifon, or the Klingon script.

By their very nature conlscript are not normally encoded in Unicode, but this has not deterred people from proposing them. A proposal for Klingon was turned down, but both Tengwar and Cirth are still under consideration. One conscript which did make it into Unicode is Shavian, named after George Bernard Shaw.

A project exists to coördinate the encoding many conscripts in specific places in the Unicode Private Use Areas (E000-F8FF and 000F0000-0010FFFF), known as the [ConScript Unicode Registry].

See also conlang.