Dhingion Niginair - letters of the Wise - is the alphabet developed by Pieter Rottiers to write his conlang, Dardanian. It's characters are loosely based on the Futhark, though they are usually written vertically, from top to bottom and from left to right.
The alphabet is said to be designed by Thinle the Seeress herself, though some historians find that hard to believe.
The Dhingion have known a long and dynamic evolution, mostly depending on the ups and downs of the cultural life in Dardaniell. It started as an adaptation of the Futhark by the Barbaroi: since this nomadic people could only use their writing on parchment (huge slabs of stone are peculiarly hard to drag around), they didn't need their alphabet to be as straight and hard as the original one. The adaptation they invented could be written with a brush of pen. It took the other people in Dardaniell a while (over two hundred years) to discover the great improvement of the alphabet. It took them another ten years to change the whole administrative system. Since those days the Dhingion have been further developed by several writers, scholars, magicians and noblemen. The variant explained here is the one used in the second half of the fifth century, during the Golden Age of the Eastern Kingdom.
In Dardanian vowels and vowel groups are written as diacritics on the right side of the vertical guiding bar, between the two consonants that surround them. Examples:
Diphthongs can be created by putting the first vowel to the right of the second. Example:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They
are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another
in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
Download a Dhingion Niginair font (TrueType format, 11K)
If you have any questions about the Dhingion Niginair alphabet, you can contact Pieter Rottiers at