Re: Optimum number of symbols

En réponse à Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>:

>
> I have to disagree with you.  An alphabet can be adapted to a new
> language with a minimum of change, adding a couple letters and/or
> diacritics.  A syllabry lacks that ability.  You'd have to either add
> thousands of characters to kana, or create some kind of "vowel-killer"
> mark (plus extra characters) to adapt it to English, for example.  And
> in doing so, you'd be stretching the definition of syllabry.
>
True. Yet I've often witnessed that alphabets are extremely resistant to
adaptation to other languages, and the result is often so awkward that it would
be more difficult to adapt the Japanese kana themselves :)) . For instance, the
Roman, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets have been successfully adapted to many
European languages, and are fit for them, but using them outside of this sphere
becomes quickly very wild :)) . I've seen transcriptions of African languages
that looked worse than ideographic systems, and failed to capture many vital
phonological phenomena. We can of course devise an entirely new alphabet, but
then we're making a new script, and it'd be better than to choose the kind of
script that fits the language best, rather than use an alphabet only because it
*has to* be more universal than any other system.

> > That's where I disagree. What did the vowel improve?
>
> Writing.  Greek (and most European languages) would be a nightmare to
> read without vowels.
>
You only prove my point: the vowel was invented because the script the Greeks
borrowed couldn't fit, as well as I think that they abandoned their former
syllabaries only because it failed to mark essential things like the voice of
consonants, and instead of modifying the script they borrowed another one
because of the influence of that civilisation, and nothing else.
This "improvement" is purely a historical accident.

After all, would Spanish be that difficult to write with a syllabary? Or Modern
Greek for that matter?

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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