Re: Optimum number of symbols

Quoting Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>:

> But that the utility of of the alphabetic principal is _universal_ is not
> one that I readily accept.  China has been exposed to the Roman alphabet
> since the early 17th century - indeed, Matteo Ricci's system of
> Romanization of 1605 was but the first of a whole series of attempts at
> alphabeticization.  Now, if the 'phonemic principal' were really of
> universal untilty, it seems strange to me that almost 400 years later the
> main system for writing Chinese is logographic.  One must conclude, it
> seems to me, that, despite it disadvantages, it is well suited to represent
> the Chinese language and that the advantages of an alphabet do not outweigh
> the perceived advantages of the traditional script.
In China, I feel it has less to do with any sense by speakers that it
is somehow "better" (according to some set of abstract criteria) than
alternatives, rather than simply more convenient in the short-run.
Unlike Europe, China has had since antiquity a largely continuous
class of literati in whose interest it was to perpetuate the study
of the Chinese classics which... were all written in the traditional
logographs.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier          "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street   and not complete one road that has no turn"
Chicago, IL 60637     Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers

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