Re: Mixed writing systems (WAS: Newbie says hi)

Mat wrote:
>
>This is clearly a major ordeal. Is there not a case for saying ideographic
>systems are a more primitive form of writing system than syllabaries, and
>syllabaries than alphabets?
This was the subject of a length discussion some time ago. The consensus was
that a universal writing system (one usable for any human language) more or
less has to be alphabetic, for many individual languages, namely those with
a low number of legal syllables, the ideal writing system would be a
syllabary. According to many, certain languages are best served by an
"abjad" (alphabet with non-indicated or only optionally indicated vowels).

Searching the archives should turn up lots of material on this kind of
questions.

                                                     Andreas

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