Re: Optimum number of symbols

At 2:51 pm -0400 23/5/02, Mike S. wrote:
[snip]
>
>Evolution goes both ways, but in the field of technology, the
>accumulative effect (two steps forward, one step back) goes towards
>progress.
Like, er, the production of nuclear weapons. Yep, a great advance in
evolution since the primitive spear.  You can kill only one guy at time
with a spear; obviously we need progress...

>Technology builds on itself, and who knows where it will
>end.
Armageddon??

[snip]
>is a good example of that.  IMO, it's an error to imagine that
>the Greeks' development of vowel letters had anything to do with
>international relations.  They developed the vowel because the Greek
>language *needed* it.
To which at 8:11 pm -0400 23/5/02, Nik Taylor replied:
[snip]
>Actually, some linguists think it was, in essence, an accident.  They
>encountered these Phoenicians letters that they had no use for, and
>applied it to what they heard as the sound, so /?alEf/ (or something
>like that), which was used for /?/, sounded to them like it just started
>with /a/, so they used it for that sound.
..and not merely some linguists think this either.  It is almost certain
that Greek was first written alphabetically in bilingual Phoenician-Greek
trading communities and probably for quite utilitarian reasons; the most
like place where this happened was Crete, and the most ancient of the
alphabets are found there.

It is exccedingly unlikely IMHO that some enlightened Greeks of the 8th
cent. BC said to themselves: "Gee, these Phoenicians have got a ggod thing
going for themselves with this alphabet - maybe we should try it" -  "Darn
it, it's no good; we need some _vowels_." - "I know, look there's all these
weird throaty sounds we don't have; let's turn 'em into vowels." - "Wow,
gee, why that's a brilliant idea you have there, Homer!" - "D'oh!"

In fact it's not at all unlikely that the first people to write Greek in
the Phoenician alphabet - because that's essentially what the earliest
Greek alphabets were, and written right to left in the Phoenician style -
were _Phoenician_ scribes and/or accountants.

I go further than Nik and say they didn't even realize they'd encountered
letters they had no use for.  They wrote what they perceived as the sounds
and, because their language had different phonology and phontactics from
Phoenician, they got it 'wrong' and, so to speak, created vowel symbols 'by
mistake'. In other words, it was a serendipity.

Ray.




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