Linear2

by Thomas Heller

Description

Linear2 is a vertical variant of the Linear1 script (follow the link for more information). It can be read from top to bottom, left to right (or right to left if the lines are arranged this way).

Example text

"The history of Linear2 script is equally long and complicated. Many tried to decipher its meaning, but very few have succeeded. May you, blessed traveller, grasp its secret!"

Characters

No.	English name	Symbol	Position	R/A	O/C	Shifts	Latin
1	right circle	circle	right	round	closed	1	a
2	left circle	circle	left	round	closed	1	b
3	double circle	circle	symmetrical	round	closed	2	c
4	right double circle	double circle	right	round	closed	2	d
5	left double circle	double circle	left	round	closed	2	e
6	double double circle	double circle	symmetrical	round	closed	4	f
7	right curve	curve	right	round	open	2	g
8	left curve	curve	left	round	open	2	h
9	double curve	curve	symmetrical	round	closed	2	i
10	right heart	heart	right	round	closed	3	j
11	left heart	heart	left	round	closed	3	k
12	double heart	heart	symmetrical	round	closed	5-6	l
13	right braid	braid	right	round	closed	3	m
14	left braid	braid	left	round	closed	3	n
15	right tip	tip	right	angular	open	3	o
16	left tip	tip	left	angular	open	3	p
17	diamond	tip	symmetrical	angular	closed	5	q
18	right box	box	right	angular	open	4	r
19	left box	box	left	angular	open	4	s
20	double box	box	symmetrical	angular	closed	6	t
21	right sideways pyramid	triangle	right	angular	closed	4	u
22	left sideways pyramid	triangle	left	angular	closed	4	v
23	hourglass	triangle	symmetrical	angular	closed	6	w
-	space	-	-	-	-	0

Note: Some characters have different English names compared to Linear1.

For this presentation, the order of characters has been kept the same as Linear1, so that the Latin letter mappings appear in order. This makes the table more readable. The preferred way of presenting Linear2 is listing left position characters before right position characters though.

Stick extension

To represent all 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, 3 more characters are needed. To compensate for this, the following stick symbols can be used in addition to the 23 main characters:

No.	English name	Symbol	Position	R/A	O/C	Shifts	Latin
24	right stick	stick	right	angular	-	3	x
25	left stick	stick	left	angular	-	3	y
26	double stick	stick	symmetrical	angular	-	4	z

(These characters do not fulfill Linear1's second property of not writing over the same line again, but they fulfill Linear1's first property that all text is written as a continuous line. Because sticks are fairly easy to write, they are nonetheless presented here as the recommended way for writing additional letters.)

Download

Sorry, there is no vector font of Linear2 yet, but if you want to experiment with Linear2 yourself, you can download PNG files for all characters in the following formats:

linear2-png.tgz (gzipped tarball)
linear2-png.zip (ZIP archive)

Images are in the png subdirectory of the archives.

HTML Generator

The following helper can be used to generate HTML code that makes use of the PNG "font". Enter some Latin characters (from the "Latin" columns above), click "generate" and corresponding <img> tags will appear.