Post by Aenwyn on Aug 28, 2023 10:50:25 GMT -5
THE THEBAN ALPHABET
The Chaudhari coven is not quite like others in Nevermere. The family itself does things a little taboo when it comes to society normals, but they make some of the most well rounded witches that Nevermere has come to see in its years. While they show up for mandated training, the Chaudhari push their women to focus on their magic in every hour after. Learning prayers, rituals, and the craft that calls to them first during those years before they push them into learning from all four areas.
Nithya Chaudhari and others of the Chaudhari coven (will dubble check with Finn once she's back!) write down their prayers, rituals and so in the Theban alphabet, also known as the Theban script or witches' alphabet. It is a substitution cipher, used by early modern occultists and Wicca practitioners. The idea behind using this alphabet is - obviously - hiding their writings from people who are not associated with the coven. It was first published in Johannes Trithemius's Polygraphia (1518) in which it was attributed to Honorius of Thebes.¹
"autre alphabet, par lequel Honorius, surnommé Thebanus, descrivoit occultement ses reigles & ordannances de magie"
There is one-to-one correspondence between Theban and the letters in the old Latin alphabet. The modern characters J and U are not represented. They are often transliterated using the Theban characters for I and V, respectively. In the original chart by Trithemius, the letter W comes after Z, as it was a recent addition to the Latin alphabet, and did not yet have a standard position. This caused it to be misinterpreted as an ampersand or end-of-sentence mark by later translators and copyists, such as Francis Barrett. Some users of those later charts transliterate W using the Theban characters for VV, parallel to how the English letter developed. Some Theban letter shapes have changed from book to book over time. Theban letters only exist in a single case.²
The alphabet is not known by other witches, much less by profane/secular citizens and (werewolf) men. In the HA universe, it is fair to say that the Chaudhari coven invented the alphabet, and didn't share its translation with anyone outside of the coven.
For quick access (for me, and anyone who would ever need to use it); a site to generate the Theban characters as a png image (works best with a couple of spaces between the words).
For more information (although this already half of wikipedia's page on the subject): Theban alphabet - wikipedia
Goddess guide you