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Re: Optimum number of symbols

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Tuesday, May 21, 2002, 23:12
"Mike S." wrote:
> I have to say I find it puzzling that syllabaries in general-- > not referring to the featural sorts you have described--have > been so consistently vaunted for their learnability, particularly > by westerners. If I want to learn a new language, I'd much rather > have it use an alphabet, or a script that has phonemelike features.
For what it's worth, I've found kana easier to learn than vowelled Arabic when I attempted it. But, then again, Arabic has the additional complication of connected letters, which makes the comparison not so good. I can see a hiragana _ka_ and instantly recognize /ka/, but I'd have to connect an Arabic _t_ with the _a_ diacritic to make /ta/. At any rate, an alphabet would probably be easier to learn, all else being equal, for someone who's ALREADY learned the concept of the alphabet.
> Second is the possibility of a more efficient writing system.
Incidentally, how are you defining efficiency in this context? Ease of writing, speed of writing, ease of recognition, conciseness of writing? Which definition you use would affect which system you find most efficient. Logograms, for example, are the most efficient in terms of conciseness, and they have advantages of recognition, especially between languages. For example, a Japanese person who knows some Chinese grammar can get the general gist of something written in Chinese because of his recognition of kanji. Japanese's use of multiple readings gives another advantage, a foreign word can be written by using the kanji that approximate its meaning and katakana to approximate its pronunciation. However, the difficulty of learning, IMO, outweighs those advantages. However, it is attractive to me, and I fully intend to create a logographic script some day. Also, there's a number of kanji that I know the meaning of but can't remember the readings for. :-) -- "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