Re: Optimum number of symbols

Hello, everybody.

Yuen Ren Chao's quote has always fascinated me.  Maybe we are alphabet
chauvinists.  I *believe* he also made some remarks to the effect that
morpheme characters make words easier to pick out of a page than sound
characters, but don't quote me on this.

Let's not forget mixed systems:  symbol sets standing for phonemes or
syllables could be used to write open-class morphemes, while symbol sets
standing for morphemes could be used for closed-class morphemes.  I know
that symbols like "&," "+," "=," etc. are darned un-esthetic in roman
writing, but that wouldn't have to be the case for a more abundant set of
morpheme symbols in an invented script.

Come to think of it, such a "mixed" script could even include some
"determinatives," a term I found in a delightful little book called
"Egyptian Hieroglyphs for Everyone" by Joseph and Lenore Scott.   The
determinatives convey semantic information that helps differentiate
homophones in writing.  Also, in Egyptian hieroglyphs, these characters
served to indicate the termination of a word, just as spaces separate words
in our modern roman writing.

I've been toying with the idea of making the kind of "mixed" script I just
described for one of my languages.  To this end, I've been looking at
logographic scripts;  no, they don't represent the type of script I've
proposed here, but they are sources esthetic inspiration.  I am no artist,
and realize that I could spend a lifetime trying--and failing miserably--to
create anything half as beautiful as Chinese characters or Egyptian
hieroglyphs.  However, when it comes to esthetics, the cuneiform scripts
give me hope.

Jim

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