Re: Evolution WAS Re: Optimum number of symbols

At 8:37 pm -0400 24/5/02, Mike S. wrote:
[snip]
>To be clear:
>
>My intention was to *name* a process which, I feel, is an undeniable
>fact of human history.
..and some question the 'undeniable fact'.
>   It was not my intention to attribute any
>moral evaluations to that process.  By calling it an 'improvement',
>I was asserting that the innovation of the Greek vowel letter was
>clearly a *technological* improvement over earlier writing systems.
Two points:
- why is it a *technological* improvement?
- why is it an *improvement* for those who do not need this feature?
- some earlier writing systems had expressed vowels long before the Greeks,
e.g. Akkadian:
 v v
 | |  = /a/
 | v
 | |

   >--
>-->--  = /i/
>-->--
(ASCIIfied cuneiform!!)

>It might be noted at this point that the name of the thread is
>"Optimum number of symbols".  I am not sure how such a question
>could be debated without resort to such technological appraisals.
R.Y. Chao, with whom this thread started, managed to do so. His guestimates
of about 170 and, later, about 200 were based on purely pragmatic
considerations.

>I hope this clears up any misunderstandings, particularly for those
>pitifuls inadvertantly inflicted by involuntary visions of nuclear
>holocaust due to the mention of the development of the Greek vowel.
No - it was because of the introduction of the idea of an evolution in
which succeeding stages show an improvement.  As Christophe has pointed
out, every innovation bring both advantages and disadvantages - we have to
weigh up both.

I happen to think that nuclear power might be put to good use, e.g. in the
generation of electricity.  But one has to weigh up the pros and cons. That
the alphabet has certain advantages over other forms of writing is
accepted; but one must also weigh up the disadvantages (many of which have
been mentioned in the "Optimum number of symbols" thread).  Clearly R.Y.
Chao did not think the advantages automatically outweighed the
disadvantages.

It seems to be the general opinion on the list that the optimum number of
symbols depends upon the language and the most suitable written system for
that language.  Thus while the use of alphabetic symbols as vowels was
advantageous to the Greeks, it is (if the testimony of Steg Belsky & Dan
Sulani is to be accpted) not advantageous in the case of Hebrew (and for
the same reason Arabic) which are better written with abjads.

Ray.



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Speech is _poiesis_ and human linguistic articulation
is centrally creative.
                                 GEORGE STEINER.
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