Re: Optimum number of symbols

Jesse Bangs wrote:
> Furthermore, any syllabary will fall apart as the
> language changes, as the syllabary will be unable to handle new
> syllables.
Not entirely true, you can adapt the syllabry to handle new syllables.
For example, Japanese uses Ci syllables followed by smaller yV syllables
to indicate CyV, and for foreign words, they use other conventions, like
FU followed by smaller versions of the vowel characters to indicate FV.
A syllabry may be a little more difficult to adapt to linguistic changes
(and if the changes are too severe, will probably become more of a
syllabic alphabet), but as English shows, alphabets are hardly immune to
that problem either.

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