An image filled with circles

Question

Here is an image. My question is simple: what is this? (As a side note, I did not invent this, and it was not intended by its creator to be a puzzle.)

PS: If you believe you have solved it, see if you can figure out this second image.

Answer 1

Maybe not the final answer, but:

There are 26 symbol packs (a few of them solo symbols), as many as in our alphabet. So I assume each of them stands for a letter. Some of the circles are there multiple times and there is a system behind it. For example the ones I noticed first:

• the two circles that could mean 'u' are also the last two circles of 'w' (double-u).

• the 5th circle, the 'e', is the second symbol on many letters, that are spoken with an e, like d,t,p ('de, te, pe') but it doesn't appear on for example l, m, n.

So - what is this?

I think it's kind of a cipher for the english alphabet, that depicts how the letters are actually spoken. Like you would write ae, be, ce...til zed. I had a theory that - as the circles remind me of emojis/faces - it has to do with how you move your mouth or lips, but the second image kind of destroyed that idea, as I can't remember to ever make the first or third symbol with my mouth :) Nevertheless, they proved me right in the alphabet idea, because here you see the numbers one to ten. Two is 't' and 'u', seven is 's', 'a', 'v' and 'n'. Some symbols are new, because they're not included in the alphabet like 'th' in three.