Here’s an Nchan Font for You and Me

Nchan is a phonetic script system. It’s the writing system in Encantadia, particularly of the Diwatas. This system was used along with Enchanta (the language such as “Avisala!” and “Pashnea!”) in the original series way back 2005. But not like Enchanta, the 2005 Nchan was not usable and was a mere set of arbitrary symbols.

For the Encantadiks who don’t need this orientation, click here to jump to the tutorial!

This 2016, Encantadia will employ a systematized Nchan. It works like our ancient native script, Alibata or Baybayin. Here’s the latest concept/development for it:

The modern-day Roman Alphabet, unlike Nchan or Baybayin, uses symbols that represent a letter or a number. The Nchan script, however, uses characters that stand for “syllables”.

Roman Alphabet vs. Nchan Transcript

The main purpose of developing this system, according to the creator, is to make it “more real” and to have something for us fans to use. And thus, we took the liberty of building a usable font that contains the Nchan characters.

We bring you…

First things first: download the Nchan.tff font and install it on your system.

Download the font here:
Google Drive Link

Step 1. Syllabicate your name as a guide.

Step 2. Type the consonants of your name using the font. Remember to use uppercase or caps lock when typing with the Nchan font. The individual symbols are embedded on these characters (A, B, C, D, E, F, …, Z)

Step 3. Identify and type the vowels (or phonetic indicators). These, on the other hand, will appear if you type the lowercase “a, e, i, o, u”. Take note.

Step 4. Using a software like Photoshop or PowerPoint, merge the consonants with the phonetic indicators. This way, you are making a “syllable” or “phonetic sound” using the symbols. You can use the concept art guide above to see the proper positioning. And then voila, you have your first Nchan writing! Pashnea! Maaari nang ipa-tattoo!

Step 5 (optional). Too complex? No worries, we built the font so that you can continuously type as is, but we hope you can live with the lie that you wrote in Nchan without following the rules of the system. Someone’s watching.

Here’s an example of continuous typing with the font. Remember to use uppercase or caps lock for each letter. Gorgeous right? But it’s lie, a blasphemy.

Either way, we hope you appreciate how the people behind Enca developed this kind of writing system. Because we sure did!

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Notes:

The latest version includes the strange phonetics ‘Ng’, and ‘Ch’. To access ‘Ng’, hit a lowercase ‘n’. To access ‘Ch’, hit an uppercase ‘X’.

Do you remember a name or word in Encantadia that uses ‘Ch’? Strange.

You can also affix an emblem by typing any of the numbers 1 to 4:

The “use caps” character will appear if you are typing consonants or bases on lowercase (b, c, d, f, g, …, z). Sir Noel’s signature will appear if you type numbers 5 to 9, including 0. Our signature appears if you type the unused punctuations (question mark, exclamation point, colon, etc).

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Here’s the full Nchan font character set as an overview.

Have fun writing and playing with it, mga ka-Enca! Haste Live, Encantadia!