The Othardian Script

[FJerome]

(I love you a lot too right now, Hinoto-no-Ryuji)

Discord claims the bottom-most symbols are numbers, ie a date: 2017-2-14

Also, ooooooh, finally, numbers! That's fantastic.

. . . Wait, never mind, those are Eorzean numbers (as seen at the Gold Saucer). I wonder if that's because this is just an Easter Egg or if it's something cooler, like a nod to how Hindu-Arabic Numerals worked out in the real world. It could be that both Eorzea and Othard use Thavnarian Numerals due to mutual trade-links and cross-cultural exchange.

Based on pure guesswork, the top rows of both middle and left batches are roles. Going by the middle top trio, from left to right, are "gakunin" (scholar; our own Scholar Job is "gakusha"), "narita" (this one I have no idea; Googling just gives the airport), and "maibito" (dancer). The left top quartet repeats the same words.

I think those may actually be stage names rather than roles, kabuki acting guild "families" have a set pool of family names they use for their stage names, with actors cycling through them as they advanced through their careers. Narita specifically is possibly a reference to the Ichikawa acting lineage.

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Carrying over the conversation that's currently going on in the reddit thread, we've also got a few kanji we know. Besides the one for Doma there's also;


人 (jin), Mankind - as seen on the Oriental Wall Scroll (JP description).


天 (ten), Heaven - because if symbol for the Jin mudra is a kanji then the other two probably are as well.


地 (chi), Earth - same line of thinking as with 天 above.

[Enur]

While i have no grasp of japanese language or the Hingan script i would like to add the sign for Kokajiya for completeness sake.

[FJerome]

(Thanks, Enur!)

We've found a few more Kanji in the Samurai's Sen Gauge. Thanks again to Tenchiko for the screenshots and also for her fortuitously Gackt-heavy leveling playlist.



This is 雪月花, ("setsu-getsu-ka" but usually read as "setsugekka" these days) - Snow, Moon, Flowers, a reoccurring aesthetic motif in Japanese and Chinese art.


雪 (setsu), Snow - the design of the handguard is a traditional snowflake shape.


月 (getsu), Moon - I'm guessing that the main difference between this and the IRL kanji is it looks like it takes five strokes instead of four?


花 (ka), Flower

[TinyRedLeaf]

雪 (setsu), Snow - the design of the handguard is a traditional snowflake shape.

月 (getsu), Moon - I'm guessing that the main difference between this and the IRL kanji is it looks like it takes five strokes instead of four?

花 (ka), Flower

I'm a native speaker of Mandarin/Cantonese. Though highly stylised (especially the kanji for snow), the characters for snow, moon and flower are the same in both Chinese and Japanese. No difference in the number of strokes (four) for getsu (yue in Mandarin).

[FJerome]

I'm a native speaker of Mandarin/Cantonese. Though highly stylised (especially the kanji for snow), the characters for snow, moon and flower are the same in both Chinese and Japanese. No difference in the number of strokes (four) for getsu (yue in Mandarin).

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I meant the Doman/Hingan version looks like it takes five strokes. The top-most stroke looks like it's a separate stroke from the right-most stroke?

[TinyRedLeaf]

No, I'm saying that the character is exactly the same, be it "Doman", Chinese or Japanese. No difference in the number of strokes.

It's a bit difficult to illustrate without the necessary fonts, so I'll try describing how it's written. The first stroke is the left sloping line. The top-line, right-line and the upward hook is always written as a single stroke. Then there are the two separate horizontal stokes inside the "perimeter" of the outer two strokes.

Hence 月, getsu or yue.

[Keever]

No, I'm saying that the character is exactly the same, be it "Doman", Chinese or Japanese. No difference in the number of strokes.

It's a bit difficult to illustrate without the necessary fonts, so I'll try describing how it's written. The first stroke is the left sloping line. The top-line, right-line and the upward hook is always written as a single stroke. Then there are the two separate horizontal stokes inside the "perimeter" of the outer two strokes.

Hence 月, getsu or yue.

This is understood. FJerome is describing not the real-life character, but the character in this image - the "getsu" part of the samurai's ingame Sen job gauge.



If you look closely at that image, you'll see that the character looks like an alternative version of the real-life (月) character. Unlike the real-life character (月), this fantasy ingame version appears to have the "top-line" and the "right-line" written as two separate strokes from one another.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

I'm with TinyRedLeaf. Those are the real-life kanji on the Sen-Gauge, albeit stylized.

It makes hard to know how to take them. All of the Ninja Kanji are different from their real life versions, and none of the kana really resemble either of the real-world sets, but all of the Samurai kanji are the same? It's not outside the realm of possibility, obviously, but it is a weirdly-outlying case.