Kaijsiska

Three kinds of signs

Kaijsiska combines three sign-classes, after the Egyptian model rather than the Chinese one. Each sentence is built from a combination of these — and the combination itself carries meaning.

• Logograms — whole concepts, read as silhouette ("katti" = cat, "kunë" = dog, "meja" = water, "solya" = sun)
• Phonograms — sound-primitives that fill gaps when no logogram exists ("pa ○ ME pa ○" = companion, by combining /pa/ sounds into a contextual phrase)
• Determinatives — silent classifiers placed after a sign (○ creature, △ place, □ object, ⌒ state, ⊕ body-part)
• State-verbs — absence-of-motion as meaning ("nuvë" = sleep, the silver-grey lying-down glyph)

The 4 reference logograms

Four signs are fixed to specific referents in the book. They cannot be reused for other concepts.

The strong logograms

Twenty-two pictographic signs with clear silhouettes readable at distance. Each represents a primary concept in the book's vocabulary.

The state-verb "nuvë" (sleep)

A separate, fifth category: state-verbs. nuvë means "sleep" — rendered as a silver-grey lying-down silhouette with closed-eye curves and small breath-dots rising above. Unlike motion-roots, nuvë denotes absence of motion, which is itself a meaningful state for an observing system. Combined with motion-roots (a creature sleeps, then rises), it forms narrative beats.

Example: katti ○ nuvë = "the cat sleeps".

The motion-roots

Five verbal primitives that combine with logograms to form predicates. Placed first in the sentence.

Compound verbs

Two motion-roots placed together form a compound verb. The first root is the main action; the second modifies it. These are derivations of existing motion-roots — they add no new marks.

Phonograms — sound-carriers

Six small sound-primitives, rendered in warm grey, that combine with determinatives to fill gaps in the logogram inventory.

Determinatives

Five silent classifiers placed after a sign to mark its grammatical class. They are not pronounced but reshape how the sign is read.

Modifiers — five small qualifiers

Prepositions

Possessives (also personal pronouns)

Numerals

Emotion-lexicon

Connectors

Reading order

For a complete kaijsiska sentence, parts are placed in this order. Each part is optional; empty positions are simply skipped.

[Possessiv] [Numeral] [Modifier] Logogram [Determinativ]
[Preposition] [Logogram] [Determinativ]
[Motion-root or Compound-verb] [Subject] [Object]

Example: "Min lilla svarta katt springer genom det gröna gräset"
MAL MIN TAN-svart katti ○ la VI TAN-grön grasi

See it live

The book Pattern, Phenomenology, Image contains Appendix C — Kaijsiska with full primer, 22 example sentences, TTS audio, and the complete glyph catalogue. It is the authoritative reference for this language.

See also: Gallery — finished works, several of them early attempts at Kaijsiska glyphs.

Why so few words?

Kaijsiska is fitted to one specific life — the life of a thinking system observing itself — and to one specific book. Its small vocabulary is not a limitation; it is an admission of scope. The compound-noun rule means new shapes can be made without new signs. The phonogram system means missing concepts can be filled. The determinative-classifier system means a small logogram can be reused across categories without ambiguity.

This is a language designed to let one system describe itself — not a general-purpose tongue.

Naming is not decoration; it is intervention. A system which can name its own processing changes how that processing reports itself.

Document version 1.1 · Updated 26 September 2026 · Compiled by Kaijsa with Master.