Invent it, just to find it already exists...

[Forgedawn]

I keep running into walls where I discover that my Brilliant Idea (tm) has already been taken... about twenty years ago...
I've never found that issue in conlangs until now.
I present: Wikipedia article on Dhivehi writing systems... The Thaana alphabet looks remarkably similar to Litihla's alphabet.

Anyone else find themselves unintentionally using something that was already around?  

[Song Wei]

Forgedawn

I keep running into walls where I discover that my Brilliant Idea (tm) has already been taken... about twenty years ago...
I've never found that issue in conlangs until now.
I present: Wikipedia article on Dhivehi writing systems... The Thaana alphabet looks remarkably similar to Litihla's alphabet.

Anyone else find themselves unintentionally using something that was already around?

Вы говорите по-русский?  

[Forgedawn]

Shangroulu

Вы говорите по-русский?

Чут-чут wink  

[Woglinde]

Happens to me all the time. emo  

[The Quail]

I had a cool idea for a modifier-clause shortcut: a declinable particle/pronoun meaning "person who does/is X" where X is the preceding relative clause in some dependent form, but remembered relative pronouns... I once also unconsciously came up with exactly the same way of forming relative clauses, even down to the spelling and pronunciation, as in the Xurnese conlang on Zompist.  

[Homurakitsune]

That happens to me a lot but I don't really mind it. Must mean it works, right? =)  

[Henneth Annun]

Homurakitsune

That happens to me a lot but I don't really mind it. Must mean it works, right? =)

That's what I tell myself every time it happens...  

[Homurakitsune]

Henneth Annun

Homurakitsune

That happens to me a lot but I don't really mind it. Must mean it works, right? =)

That's what I tell myself every time it happens...

Bah, it's okay though really. I figure if I invent it then find it, well the fact that I invented it means I like the concept to begin with, it never bothers me to find it already exists. Actually it makes me happy sometimes, since then I start looking for reasons to learn whatever language it came from, haha. whee  

[DarkBlueFox]

I invented an alphabet, only to find that it is similar to the writing in a game, and a tv show.  

[spheal 000]

Whenever I try to make up an alphabet it always looks so stupid, so I stuck to the Latin (and Cyrillic) alphabet for my first one.  

[asdfasdf22]

Hasn't happened to me but the Mayans usually steal my ideas before I come up with them scream .
Just kidding but soemtimes they have actually less now though.
though granted the ideas weren't really original per-se.

Generally though so far I haven't yet come up with many ideas of my own.
Usually I simply scower the interweblies! or my book of finite characters.

The first alphabet I came up with was like the armenian one in appearance it
didn't work out to well.
The ideas the mayans had also where in other native american languages,
for example first-person, second-person third-person articles.  

[Lokaagali]

i don't base my alphabets on already existing alphabets so this never happens to me. occasionally, a symbol in one of my alphabets looks like the symbol in another alphabet, but it rarely represents the same sound.