Re: Optimum number of symbols

At 6:28 pm -0400 22/5/02, Mike S. wrote:
>Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:
[snip]
>>I contend the neither French nor English are strawmen.  The simple truth of
>>the matter is that alphabetic scripts have never been phonemic until the
>>creation of some last century.  Where alphabets were developed and evolved
>>over centuries we have admittedly a 'tendency towards phonemic spelling'.
[snip]
>
>My main statement comes in a moment, but I want to inject here that
>I disagree with your assessment that alphabetic scripts have never
>been phonemic until the creation of some last century.  IMO, written
>ancient Greek and Latin both fall solidly into the category of
>phonemic scripts, the occasional quirk or irregularity notwithstanding.
If 'twas just an occasional quirk, then the pronunciation of ancient Greek
would be clear and non-contoversal.  It ain't either.

It's true we have a better understanding of Latin, but it's still not phonemic.

At 8:28 pm -0400 22/5/02, Nik Taylor wrote:
>
>There were several contrasts not captured by the script.  For example,
>the Romans rarely marked long and short vowels, even tho it had the
>possibility, and Greek had no way of indicating certain vowel contrasts
>like (IIRC) /a/ and /a:/
The Romans did occasionally use things like writing the vowel twice, or
puting an 'apex' (mark rather like an accute accent) over the vowel; but
neither became generally adopted.  In normal Latin spelling the phonemic
contrast in vowel length simply is not marked.

To Nik at 10:38 pm -0400 22/5/02, Mike S. repiled:
[snip]
>
>That was the one biggie.  In Latin, semivowels and <Q> if you want
>to get picky.  Other than that, highly phonemic.
I don't understand why the lack of distinction between long & short vowels
is described as 'the one biggie' and the lack of semivowels is dismissed as
getting picky.  In Classical Latin [j] and [w] simply were *not* allophones
of /i/ and /u/, they had separate phonemic status.  It is true that, for
the most part, it can be predicted - when you get used to it - when {i} =
/j/.  But that is simply not true of {u}.   The Romans themselves felt this
to be awkward, tho they never got around to sorting it out.  But it is
significant, I think, that one Claudius' extra letters was an inverted F to
represent /w/.

Just to add to the fun, {i} in some words represented _two_ phonemes /j/ +
/i/, e.g.
adicere /ad'jikere/
conicere  /kon'jikere/
etc.
As for Q, that was an attempt to distinguish between /u/ and /w/ in a
context where the confusion would otherwise have been very problematic,
namely:
cu = /ku/
qu = /kw/

So, e.g. example we can distinguish _cui_ /kuj/ from _qui_ /kwi:/.  But
it's mighty odd way of going about things, and it does nothing to help
other instances of {u}.  How can one tell from the spelling that, e.g.
_soluo_ is disyllabic /'solwo:/ while _solui_ is trisyllabic /'solui:/ ?
One cannot.

I must disagree; I cannot count as _phonemic_ an alphabet where one symbol
can represent three different phonemes:
{u} = /u/ _or_ /u:/ _or_ /w/

and another symbol may represent one of three phonemes or a group of two
phonemes, i.e.
{i} = /i/ _or_ /i:/ _or_ /j/ _or_ /jj/ _or /ji/

I still maintain that early alphabets 'tended towards a phonemic
represntation' or, if you prefer R.Y. Chao's words:
"An _alphabetic writing system_ is one in which each symbol corresponds
more or less closely to the phonemes of the language."

>The basic and universal utility of the phonemic principle has been
>in effect--indeed proven IMO--at least since the development of the
>Greek alphabet with vowel letters, even if the Romans and Greeks did
>not have the same precise modern understanding of "phoneme" we have.
They most certainly did not.  Indeed, in view of different definitions of
'phoneme' given by, e.g. the Prague School, by the British phonetician
Daniel Jones, and by American linguists of the 1940s, and remembering the
questioning of the phonemic principle recently on this list and And's
outright rejection of the phonemic theory (and he is not alone in this), I
don't think we can say the modern understanding is 'precise'.

I have not denied the utility of the alphabet, otherwise the Greeks
would've carried on with their ancient syllabary.  The utility of the
alphabet is seen with the widespread adoption of the Roman alphabet in the
last couple of centuries.

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.

On the other hand, Arabic numerals have been adopted universally in Europe
and, indeed, now most of the world (either in their westernized or native
Arabic form) because they were perceived to be universally advantageous.

>
>
>>In English and French, the correspondence between alphabet and phoneme is
>>less close than it is in, say, Welsh or Spanish or, indeed, ancient Greek
>>or Latin (neither of which were written totally phonemically).
>
>In the previous paragraphs, you seem to be arguing one of two
>things here, and I'm afraid I don't know which.
No - it's quite simple: Welsh, Spanish, ancient Greek, and Latin
orthographies are/were more phonemic than English or French.

English and French are less phonemic than the list above.

One could go further: the alphabet we call 'ancient Greek' (in fact the
version of the Ionian alphabet adopted in Athens in 5th cent. BC,
supplanting their earlier one) was more phonemic than the archaic Greek
alphabets of the 8th & 7th cent. BC (and, indeed, more phonemic than it was
become in the Koine, Byzantine & modern Greek).

None of the alphabets above are truly phonemic.  What I said was that
'alphabets tend to be phonemic' or as Chao wrote they are 'more or less'
phonemic - Welsh is more, English is less.

[snip]
>
>Again, I am not sure what you are arguing.
Not difficult:
1. The utility of applying the phonemic principle to every language is not
proven
2. No alphabet, before some created in the 20th cent., were in any case
truly phonemic
3. Alphabetic systems tend towards phonemic representation; some are closer
than others (for all sorts of reasons)

Therefore, I contend that an alphabet is not necessarily the most suited
way of representing every language; other methods may be equally valid or,
indeed, better for a particular language.

[snip]
>
>It's true that these scripts, which might be called proto-alphabetic,
>indeed marked consonant phonemes.  As I understand it--I might be
>wrong--most of these languages (unlike Greek) had only a few vowel
>phonemes, and thus could more easily afford not marking them.
No - it's that in Semitic languages vowel patterns are largely predictable.

>I would
>have to think though, that although these scripts were basically
>adequate, problems would occasionally arise in any script with such
>an array of polyphonous symbols.
Apparently not.  It was only when certain texts were held to be sacred and,
in the case of Hebrew, the language was moribund as a spoken language or,
in the case of Arabic, the language starting developing different spoken
dialects (like modern English is doing), that a need was felt to mark the
vowels so that the sacred texts would be read correctly.  Even now, Arabic
is normally written without vowel marks, the latter being used almost only
in texts of the Koran. The revived modern Hebrew in Israel is not normally
written with vowel marks.

>Everything else being equal, wouldn't
>you have to agree that such a script is improved by marking vowels?
It depends on the language, I think.  It would be interesting to learn the
observation of our Hebrew speakers on this list (and, indeed, Arabic
speakers if we have any).

[snip]
>
>It is clear to me that scripts arose through a centuries-long
>evolutionary process, in which enhancements were gradually added.
Development, I go along with, but 'evolution' rings alarm bells.  It's not
that I do not believe in the process of biological evolution; I do.  But
it's the mis-application of Darwin's ideas in the latter 19th & early 20th
centuries that alarm me, .e.g. that religion evolved from primitive
animisn, through polytheism, to henotheism, thence to monotheism and
eventually to the 'superior' notion of a single triune deity; that
primitive peoples came out of Africa and were black, and that there was
evolutionary 'progress' through varying shades of brown, till the superior
fair-skined, blue-eyed & blond-haired master-race evolved.  That primitive
peoples used pictograms, then logograms, eventually adding phonetic
elements and the more clever evolving syllabaries, then pseudo-syllabaries,
thus leading to the evolution of the 'superior' alphabet.  Funny how all
these "evolutionary" processes reached their culmination in (northern)
Europe and in parts of the New World where peoples from northern Europe
settled.

I don't say for one moment that you go along with any of this (except
maybe) the alphabet bit; indeed, I imagine you don't.  But these notions I
find abhorrent; and I don't subscribe to this view of the develoment of
writing either.

>The development of consonant-only syllabary (if I may call it that)
>represented a major step in this process;
Essentially an alphabet - and long anticipated in Egyptian writing.

>the Greek innovation
>to add vowel letters to their alphabet represented another.
..and the early Greeks didn't even realize they were doing it  :)
It was lucky happenstance.

>Both these cases, IMO, marked a definite objective improvement
>over the older systems.  This is not to do not deny the fact
>that the older systems were adequate;
When systems like the Egyptian lasted about four millennia and the Chinese
system is still going strong after three and a half millennia, I'd say
describibg them as "adequate" is being a bit patronizing.

>I do claim however
>it is possible to make relative utilitarian judgements
>in certain areas.
Yep - In theory, the Shavian alphabet should surely be more useful - it
takes up less space for a start, is far more regular etc etc.  Indeed, Shaw
himself was convinced that the uilitarian minded Brits would abandon the
Roman alphabet in favor a phonemic alphabet on purely practical &
utilitarian grounds.  But the phonemic Shavian alphabet has never caught
on; we find our less-than-phonemic version of the Roman alphabet adequate.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

At 10:32 pm -0400 22/5/02, Mike S. wrote:
[snip]
>
>One did thing I did agree with Raymond Brown on is that it's
>more important that writing represent speech rather than
>meaning.
Good  :)

Ray.

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

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