Dropped Letters

What is Hachukma? Hachukma is an independent alphabetic script, not based on the Roman alphabet. Each letter represents one sound. The script follows the acrophonic principle, meaning each letter's shape is derived from an object whose name begins with that sound. For example, the letter for 'b' comes from Buphang-kwthwi (death tree), and the letter for 'g' comes from Golari (slingshot).

Why were these letters removed? While creating the alphabet, a few problems appeared. First, some letters I had drawn unintentionally matched symbols from other neography scripts that were also made for Kokborok. This was my mistake — I should have researched those existing scripts beforehand, but I was unaware of them at the time, largely because their script type and formation principle do not match Hachukma's acrophonic system. Nevertheless, the accidental visual overlap still caused confusion. To keep the script clear and unique, those letters were removed. Second, some letters looked too similar to other letters already in the alphabet, which would cause confusion when reading or writing, so the extra ones were dropped. Third, some letters had too many strokes or curves, making them slow to write, so they were replaced with faster, simpler ones.

Numerals were also refined during the design process. Early numeral designs were dropped because they unintentionally matched symbols from other existing script. To avoid confusion and keep the script unique, those numeral designs were removed and replaced with the distinct Hachukma numerals we see today.

The table below shows all the removed letters, their sounds, and their replacements. (Numerals are not included in this table.) The names printed in red mark the glyphs that unintentionally matched other Kokborok neography scripts. The corresponding replacements, shown in green, are the distinct Hachukma letters adopted for those sounds instead.