Re: Optimum number of symbols

Tim May wrote:
> There are cursive and semicursive styles of Chinese and Japanese
> calligraphy using logograms, too, although they seem rather hard to
> decipher.
I'm under the impression that most Chinese and Japanese people find them
illegible too.  :-)  In those cases, artistic considerations take
precedence of considerations of legibility.

Incidentally, the number characters in Uatakassi are derived from
cursive variants of an old logographic script.  The language uses a base
12, but, confusingly, the written language uses base 6 for numbers under
144; higher characters were changed to fit base 12, so that the
character that originally referred to 216 (6^3) came to be reinterpreted
as 144.

The origins of the characters:
1: Finger
2: Sun (there are 2 suns on this planet)
3: Moon (there are 3 moons)
4: The two skies (i.e., sky in a generic; there are distinct terms for
   day sky and night sky; the 3 moons and the lesser sun are
   traditionally called the nomads, as they can exist in both day sky
   and night sky)
5: Sun-and-moon
6: Hand
36: Person (six digits on both hands, both feet, and in both wings -
they have vestigial wings)
144: Village

The forms can be found at the bottom of the syllabry chart at
http://Nik_Taylor.tripod.com/Conlang/Syllabry.html

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