Re: Optimum number of symbols

"Mike S." wrote:
> Surely your apparent inability to grasp my intention is an affect.
Then enlighten me.  What do you mean by "a new syllabic"?  Are you
thinking of a system with thousands of characters?  If so, then you
would have a point, but most syllabries have a few score characters
which aren't hard to learn.  Kana, for example, has 46 characters plus
the voicing diacritic and the p-diacritic, whose name I can't remember.
Once those limited number of characters are learned (which usually
occurs before the child enters school, and no later than the end of the
first third of first grade), a word can be read just as easily as in an
alphabet.

> That this thread might die, I have chosen to ignore several
> patches of nonsense from your post.  My only response will
> be to urge you, out of respect for others upon whom you might
> opt to inflict your style of debate, to teach yourself the precise
> meaning of the following terms:
>
> phone, phoneme, phonetic, phonemic, productive.
I do know the meanings of those.  I have remained polite in my responses
to you, I would appreciate your being polite as well.  What makes you
think I don't know those terms?

Let me rephrase my point all along: There IS no single "ideal system".
Any system chosen to write a language is a compromise of several goals,
such as conciseness of writing, ease of learning, flexibility, and so
on.  What system is best for a given language is a subjective decision,
based on what value one puts on these differing goals.

--
"There's no such thing as 'cool'.  Everyone's just a big dork or nerd,
you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." -
overheard
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42