Re: Optimum number of symbols

Raymond Brown wrote:
>
>So:
>1. What is the optimum number of symbols?
Depends.

That's the easy way out, innit? Still, what I mean is that the answer to 1.
is dependent on the nature of the language we're going to represent. If the
language has a mere 200 legal syllables a syllabary of the same number of
symbols would have alot going for it, and obviously the appeal of a
syllabary increases as the number of syllables decreases. OTOH, for a
language like English, with thousands of possible syllables, a syllabary
becomes rather impractical. The optimal set of symbols would, IMO, very
probably be an alphabetic script combined with some extra signs for very
frequent entities (words like "the" and "and" in the case of English, eg).

>2. If the optimum number is in the hundreds (or thousands!), what would
>each symbol represent?
See above-
>
>I know some artlangers have devised their own scripts.
>3. Have such scripts been alphabetic (like JRRT's Tengawr and Dwarvish
>runes), or have you used some other system?
Alphabetic.

>4. Were you motivated by any thoughts of 'optimality' or just doing it for
>the fun of creating?
The fun aspcet, m'afraid
>
>Finally:
>5. Have any designers of auxlangs and/or engelangs devised a special set of
>symbols for their languages? If so, why?
Don't do aux/engelangs.

                                                 Andreas

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